Introduction

The fruitful interaction between research in physics and technological development in the field of particle accelerators and detectors is the main theme of this book. For accelerators, research is driven by the need for ever-higher energy and intensity, and to supply an increasingly diverse range of beams, from electrons and protons and their antiparticles to heavy or radioactive nuclei. For experimentation, measurement capabilities need to be continuously improved, taking advantage of an ever stronger symbiosis between detectors, electronics and computing technology.