CALTECH PHYSICIST TO DISCUSS SEARCH FOR UNIVERSE'S STRANGEST PARTICLES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ, CA--Particles with only one magnetic pole, massive but ghostly particles called "WIMPs," and high-energy blasts from supernovas and the Big Bang itself--these are among the quarries of MACRO, a huge detector 3,000 feet beneath the Gran Sasso mountain in Italy.

California Institute of Technology physicist Barry Barish, U.S. spokesman for this international project, will describe MACRO and its early results in a public lecture at UC Santa Cruz. The free talk, titled "Particle Physics: A View from Deep Underground," begins at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 28, in Thimann Lecture Hall 1 at UCSC.

MACRO, nearly the size of a football field, is one of a number of subterranean devices worldwide that physicists use to probe the universe's most violent events. Shielded by the mountain above it and the planet below, MACRO watches for particles that are vastly more energetic than those produced in any accelerator on earth.

Barish's lecture is part of the Delphasus Lecture Series, funded by a private gift to UCSC to increase public appreciation of issues in astronomy and physics. For more information, call 459-2495.

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