This project will support the establishment of a cooperative advanced physics laboratory among the institutions of Five Colleges, Inc.: Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts. The purpose of the course is to provide undergraduate physics majors at the five colleges with intensive, comprehensive experience with state-of-the-art instrumentation -- experience currently missing from the usual undergraduate curriculum. The equipment will be used to create a repertoire of advanced physics experiments built on the strengths of the individual departments. Each department will contribute and host experiments in a particular field, with all of the experiments made available to any advanced physics students at any of the five colleges. Amherst will be the site for atomic physics, Mount Holyoke for nuclear physics, Smith for cosmic ray physics, and the University for low temperature physics and microwave radiometry. This local cooperative enterprise is the logical solution to the problem of giving students a broad background in experimental techniques while simultaneously augmenting the special strengths of the departments individually.
