{{Short description|American physicist who developed the betatron}} {{good article}} {{Use mdy dates|date=August 2024}} {{Infobox scientist |name = Donald William Kerst |image = Kerst-donald w.jpg |image_size = |caption = Kerst's Los Alamos badge |birth_name = Donald William Kerst |birth_date = {{birth date|mf=yes|1911|11|1}} |birth_place = Galena, Illinois, U.S. |death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|1993|8|19|1911|11|1}} |death_place = Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. |residence = |field = Physics (Accelerator physics, Plasma physics) |work_institutions = University of Illinois<br/>Los Alamos Laboratory<br/>University of Wisconsin | alma_mater = University of Wisconsin–Madison (BA 1934, PhD 1937) | thesis_title = The Development of Electrostatic Generators in Air Pressure and Applications to Excitation Functions of Nuclear Reactions | thesis_url = | thesis_year = 1937 | doctoral_advisor = |doctoral_students = |known_for = Betatron |author_abbrev_bot = |author_abbrev_zoo = |influences = |influenced = |prizes = Comstock Prize in Physics (1943) |footnotes = |signature = }}
'''Donald William Kerst''' (November 1, 1911 – August 19, 1993) was an American physicist who worked on advanced particle accelerator concepts (accelerator physics) and plasma physics. He is most notable for his development of the betatron, a novel type of particle accelerator used to accelerate electrons.
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Kerst developed the first betatron at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, where it became operational on July 15, 1940. During World War II, Kerst took a leave of absence in 1940 and 1941 to work on it with the engineering staff at General Electric, and he designed a portable betatron for inspecting dud bombs. In 1943 he joined the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory, where he was responsible for designing and building the Water Boiler, a nuclear reactor intended to serve as a laboratory instrument.
From 1953 to 1957 Kerst was technical director of the Midwestern Universities Research Association, where he worked on advanced particle accelerator concepts, most notably the FFAG accelerator. He was then employed at General Atomics's John Jay Hopkins Laboratory from 1957 to 1962, where he worked on the problem of plasma physics. With Tihiro Ohkawa he invented toroidal devices for containing the plasma with magnetic fields. Their devices were the first to contain plasma without the instabilities that had plagued previous designs, and the first to contain plasma for lifetimes exceeding the Bohm diffusion limit.
==Early life== Donald William Kerst was born in Galena, Illinois November 1, 1911,<ref name=sessler/> the son of Herman Samuel Kerst and Lillian E Wetz.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://boards.ancestry.com/surnames.kerst/43/mb.ashx |title=Obituary - Dr. Donald William KERST 1911–1993 |publisher=Ancestry.com |access-date=October 2, 2014 }}</ref> He entered the University of Wisconsin, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1934, and then his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in 1937,<ref name="Physics Today">{{cite journal |last1=Symon |first1=Keith R. |author-link=Keith Symon |last2=Koch |first2=H. William |title=Obituary: Donald Kerst |journal=Physics Today |date=January 1994 |volume=47 |issue=1 |pages=58–59 |doi=10.1063/1.2808381 |bibcode=1994PhT....47a..58S |doi-access=free }}</ref> writing his thesis on "The Development of Electrostatic Generators in Air Pressure and Applications to Excitation Functions of Nuclear Reactions".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?return_req=no_params&author=Kerst,%20Donald%20W.&db_key=PHY |publisher=SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) |title=Publications of Donald W. Kerst |access-date=May 17, 2016 }}</ref> This involved building and testing a 2.3 MeV generator for experiments with the scattering of protons.<ref name="Physics Today"/>
==Betatron== [[File:First betatron 1940.jpg|alt=Photo of Kerst working on the first Betatron in 1942|thumb|Kerst (right) seen working on the first betatron in 1942]] After graduation, Kerst worked at General Electric Company for a year, working on the development of x-ray tubes and machines. He found this frustrating, as x-ray research required high energies that could not be produced at the time. In 1938 he accepted an offer of an instructorship at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, where the head of the physics department, F. Wheeler Loomis encouraged Kerst in his efforts to create a better particle accelerator.<ref name="Physics Today"/> The result of these efforts was the betatron.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Kerst | first1 = D. W. | s2cid = 120616002 | author-link1 = Donald William Kerst| title = Acceleration of Electrons by Magnetic Induction | doi = 10.1103/PhysRev.58.841 | bibcode = 1940PhRv...58..841K| journal = Physical Review | volume = 58 | issue = 9 | pages = 841 | year = 1940 }}</ref><ref name="magnind">{{Cite journal | last1 = Kerst | first1 = D. W. | author-link = Donald William Kerst | title = The Acceleration of Electrons by Magnetic Induction | journal = Physical Review | volume = 60 | issue = 1 | pages = 47–53 | year = 1941 | doi = 10.1103/PhysRev.60.47 | bibcode = 1941PhRv...60...47K | url = http://web.ihep.su/dbserv/compas/src/kerst41/eng.pdf}}</ref> When it became operational on July 15, 1940, Kerst became the first person to accelerate electrons using electromagnetic induction, reaching energies of 2.3 MeV.<ref name="Smithsonian Gets Betatron"/>
In December 1941 Kerst decided on "betatron", using the Greek letter "beta", which was the symbol for electrons, and "tron" meaning "instrument for".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://archives.library.illinois.edu/blog/donald-kerst-and-the-betatron/ |title="A Very Bold and Original Device": Donald Kerst and the Betatron |first=Bethany |last=Anderson |publisher=University of Illinois |date=June 11, 2013 |access-date=October 2, 2014 }}</ref> He went on to build more betatrons of increasing energy, a 20 MeV machine in 1941, an 80 MeV in 1948, and a 340 MeV machine, which was completed in 1950.<ref name="Smithsonian Gets Betatron"/>
The betatron would influence all subsequent accelerators. Its success was due to a thorough understanding of the physics involved, and painstaking design of the magnets, vacuum pumps and power supply.<ref name=sessler/> In 1941, he teamed up with Robert Serber to provide the first theoretical analysis of the oscillations that occur in a betatron.<ref name=sessler/><ref name="elorb">{{Cite journal | last1 = Kerst | first1 = D. W. | author-link1 = Donald William Kerst | last2 = Serber | first2 = R. | author-link2 = Robert Serber | title = Electronic Orbits in the Induction Accelerator | journal = Physical Review | volume = 60 | issue = 1 | pages = 53–58 | date=Jul 1941 | doi = 10.1103/PhysRev.60.53 | bibcode = 1941PhRv...60...53K}}</ref> The original 1940 machine was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1960.<ref name="Smithsonian Gets Betatron">{{cite news |newspaper=Daily Illini |date=October 20, 1960 |page=12 |title=Smithsonian Gets Betatron |url=http://idnc.library.illinois.edu/cgi-bin/illinois?a=d&d=DIL19601020.2.58# |access-date=October 2, 2014 }}</ref>
==World War II== [[File:Los-Alamos-Water-Boiler-LANL12784.jpg|thumb|right|The Water Boiler, an aqueous homogeneous reactor at the Los Alamos Laboratory, was the first reactor to use enriched uranium as a fuel]] During World War II, Kerst took a leave of absence from the University of Illinois to work on the development of the betatron with the engineering staff at General Electric in 1940 and 1941. They designed 20 MeV and 100 MeV versions of the betatron, and he supervised the construction of the former, which he brought back to the University of Illinois with him. He also designed a portable 4 MeV betatron for inspecting dud bombs.<ref name=sessler/>
Kerst's engineering and physics background placed him near the top of the list of scientists that Robert Oppenheimer recruited for the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory, which was set up to design the atomic bomb.{{sfn|Hoddeson|Henriksen|Meade|Westfall|1993|p=82}} In August 1943, Kerst was placed in charge of the Laboratory's P-7 Group, which was responsible for designing and building the Water Boiler,{{sfn|Hoddeson|Henriksen|Meade|Westfall|1993|p=185}}<ref name="Physics Today"/> a nuclear reactor intended to serve as a laboratory instrument to test critical mass calculations and the effect of various tamper materials. Primarily drawn from Purdue University, his group included Charles P. Baker, Gerhart Friedlander, Lindsay Helmholtz, Marshall Holloway, and Raemer Schreiber. Robert F. Christy provided help with the theoretical calculations.{{sfn|Hoddeson|Henriksen|Meade|Westfall|1993|pp=199–203}}
Kerst designed an aqueous homogeneous reactor in which enriched uranium in the form of soluble uranium sulfate, was dissolved in water, and surrounded by a beryllium oxide neutron reflector. It was the first reactor to employ enriched uranium as a fuel, and required most of the world's meager supply at the time. A sufficient quantity of enriched uranium arrived at Los Alamos by April 1944, and the Water Boiler commenced operation in May. By the end of June it had achieved all of its design goals.{{sfn|Hoddeson|Henriksen|Meade|Westfall|1993|pp=199–203}}
The Los Alamos Laboratory was reorganized in August 1944 to concentrate on creating an implosion-type nuclear weapon.{{sfn|Hoddeson|Henriksen|Meade|Westfall|1993|pp=245–247}} Studying implosion on a large scale, or even a full scale, required special diagnostic methods. As early as November 1943, Kerst suggested using a betatron employing 20 MeV gamma rays instead of x-rays to study implosion.{{sfn|Hoddeson|Henriksen|Meade|Westfall|1993|pp=154–157}} In the August 1944 reorganization, he became joint head, with Seth Neddermeyer, of the G-5 Group, part of Robert Bacher's G (Gadget) Division specifically charged with betatron testing. Oppenheimer had the 20 MeV betatron at the University of Illinois shipped to Los Alamos, where it arrived in December. On January 15, 1945, the G-5 Group took their first betatron pictures of an implosion.{{sfn|Hoddeson|Henriksen|Meade|Westfall|1993|pp=274–277}}
==Later life== Kerst returned to the University of Illinois after the war. From 1953 to 1957 he was technical director of the Midwestern Universities Research Association, where he worked on advanced particle accelerator concepts, most notably the FFAG accelerator.<ref>{{US patent reference | number = 2932798 | y = 1960 | m = 04 | d = 12 | inventor = Donald William Kerst and Keith R. Symon | url=http://www.google.com/patents?id=ZWZVAAAAEBAJ|title=Imparting Energy to Charged Particles }}</ref> He developed the spiral-sector focusing principle, which lies at the heart of many spiral ridge cyclotrons that are now in operation around the world. His team devised and analysed beam stacking, a process of radio frequency acceleration in fixed field machines that led to the development of the colliding beam accelerators.<ref name="Physics Today"/>
From 1957 to 1962 Kerst was employed at the General Atomics division of General Dynamics's John Jay Hopkins Laboratory for Pure and Applied Science in La Jolla, California, where he worked on plasma physics, which it was hoped was the doorway to the control of thermonuclear energy.<ref name=sessler/> With Tihiro Ohkawa he invented toroidal devices for containing the plasma with magnetic fields. The two completed this work at the University of Wisconsin,<ref name="Physics Today"/> where Kerst was a professor from 1962 until his retirement in 1980.<ref name=nytimes/> Their devices were the first to contain plasma without the instabilities that had plagued previous designs, and the first to contain plasma for lifetimes exceeding the Bohm diffusion limit.<ref name=sessler/> From 1972 to 1973 he was also chairman of the Plasma Physics Division of the American Physical Society.<ref name=sessler>{{cite web | last1=Sessler | first1=Andrew M. | author-link1=Andrew Sessler | last2=Symon | first2=Keith R. | author-link2=Keith Symon | url=http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/kerst-donald.pdf | title=Donald William Kerst | publisher=National Academy of Sciences | access-date=May 28, 2008 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240612183829/http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/kerst-donald.pdf | archive-date=June 12, 2024 }}</ref>
Kerst was married to Dorothy Birkett Kerst. They had two children,<ref name=sessler/> a daughter, Marilyn, and a son, Stephen. After he retired, Kerst and Dorothy moved to Fort Myers, Florida.<ref name=nytimes/> He died on August 19, 1993, at the University Hospital and Clinics in Madison, Wisconsin, from a brain tumor. He was survived by his wife and children.<ref name=nytimes>{{cite news | last=Browne | first=Malcolm L. | date=August 20, 1993 | title=Donald William Kerst Dies at 81; Built Particle Accelerators in 40's | work=The New York Times | url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE6D6133EF933A1575BC0A965958260 | access-date=May 28, 2008 }}</ref> His papers are in the University of Illinois Archives.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://archives.library.illinois.edu/archon/?p=collections/controlcard&id=700 |title=Donald W. Kerst Papers, 1937–1959, 1983–85, 1987 |publisher=University of Illinois |access-date=October 2, 2014 }}</ref>
==Awards and honors== * Honorary degree, Lawrence College, 1942.<ref name=sessler/> * Awarded Comstock Prize in Physics, National Academy of Sciences, 1943.<ref name=Comstock>{{cite web|title=Comstock Prize in Physics |url=http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_comstock |publisher=National Academy of Sciences |access-date=February 13, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101229195326/http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_comstock |archive-date=December 29, 2010 }}</ref> * Awarded John Scott Award, City of Philadelphia, 1946.<ref name=sessler/> * Awarded John Price Wetherill Medal, Franklin Institute, 1950.<ref name=sessler/> * Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, 1951.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?kerstd |title=Donald Kerst |publisher=Array of Contemporary American Physicists |access-date=October 2, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006083909/http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?kerstd |archive-date=October 6, 2014 |url-status=dead }}</ref> * Honorary degree, University of São Paulo, 1953.<ref name=sessler/> * Honorary degree, University of Wisconsion, 1961.<ref name=sessler/> * Founding member of the World Cultural Council, 1981.<ref>{{cite web | title = About Us | publisher = World Cultural Council | url = http://www.consejoculturalmundial.org/about-us/ | access-date = November 8, 2016 | archive-date = June 29, 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190629135114/https://www.consejoculturalmundial.org/about-us/ | url-status = dead }}</ref> * Awarded James Clerk Maxwell Prize in plasma physics, American Physical Society, 1984.<ref name=sessler/> * Awarded Robert R. Wilson Prize for accelerator physics, 1988.<ref name=sessler/> * Honorary degree, University of Illinois, 1989.<ref name=sessler/>
==Notes== {{Reflist|30em}}
==References== * {{cite book |last1=Hoddeson |first1=Lillian|author-link=Lillian Hoddeson|first2=Paul W. |last2=Henriksen |first3=Roger A. |last3=Meade |first4=Catherine L. |last4=Westfall|author4-link= Catherine Westfall | title = Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years, 1943–1945 | location = New York | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 1993 | isbn = 0-521-44132-3 | oclc = 26764320 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/criticalassembly0000unse }}
==External links== * {{cite web |url=https://www.historypin.org/attach/tours/view/id/3091/title/The%20Life%20of%20Donald%20W.%20Kerst |title=The Life of Donald W. Kerst |publisher=Historypin |access-date=October 2, 2014 |archive-date=March 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305212234/http://www.historypin.org/attach/tours/view/id/3091/title/the%20life%20of%20donald%20w.%20kerst |url-status=dead }} * {{cite web |url=https://inspirehep.net/search?p=exactauthor%3AD.W.Kerst.1&sf=earliestdate |publisher=High Energy Physics information system |title=Publications of Donald W. Kerst |access-date=May 16, 2016 }}
{{Founding members of the World Cultural Council}} {{James Clerk Maxwell Prize in Plasma Physics recipients}}
{{portal bar|Biography|Physics|History of Science|Nuclear technology}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kerst, Donald William}} Category:1911 births Category:1993 deaths Category:Accelerator physicists Category:20th-century American physicists Category:Founding members of the World Cultural Council Category:Manhattan Project people Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Category:People from Galena, Illinois Category:Fellows of the American Physical Society