Physics at the SLC [SLAC Linear Collider]

The SLAC Linear Collider (SLC) was constructed in the years 1983--1987 for two principal reasons: to develop the accelerator physics and technology that are necessary for the construction of future linear electron-positron colliders; and to produce electron-positron collisions at the Z0 pole and to study the physics of the weak neutral current. To date, the SLC program has been quite successful at achieving the first goal. The machine has produced and collided high energy electron and positron beams of three-micron transverse size. The problems of operating an open geometry detector in an environment that is more akin to those found in fixed-target experiments than in storage rings have largely been solved. As a physics producing venture, the SLC has been less successful than was originally hoped but more successful than is commonly believed. Some of the results that have been produced by the Mark II experiment with a very modest data sample are competitive with those that have been produced with much larger samples by the four LEP collaborations. At the current, time, SLAC is engaged in an ambitious program to upgrade the SLC luminosity and to exploit one of its unique features, a spin polarized electron beam. These lectures are therefore organized into three sections: a brief description of the SLC; a review of the physics results that have been achieved with the Mark II detector; a description of the SLC's future: the realization and use of a polarized electron beam