Particle accelerators are experimental techniques and associated infrastructures that use electromagnetic fields to accelerate charged particles, such as electrons, protons, or heavy ions, to high kinetic energies and control their trajectories for collision, beam-target, or irradiation experiments. They employ radiofrequency cavities, electrostatic fields, and magnetic optics (dipole, quadrupole, and higher-order magnets) to shape, focus, and steer beams with precise energy, emittance, and luminosity characteristics. As techniques, accelerators enable probing of fundamental interactions in high-energy physics, production of secondary particles (e.g., neutrons, mesons, synchrotron radiation), and finely controlled irradiation or imaging in materials science, nuclear physics, and medical and industrial applications.
MIT physicists and colleagues report new insights into exotic particles key to a form of magnetism that has attracted growing interest because it originates from ultrathin materials only a few atomic layers thick. The work, ...
General Physics
Aug 1, 2024
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At the U.S. Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, the underground Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) more closely resembles a racetrack than it does a racecar. As a DOE ...
General Physics
Jul 31, 2024
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It sounds fantastical, but it's a reality for the scientists who work at the world's largest particle collider.
Condensed Matter
Jul 29, 2024
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When you push "start" on your microwave or computer, the device flips right on—but major physics experiments like the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, don't work that ...
General Physics
Jul 17, 2024
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Researchers from the School of Physics & Astronomy have been involved in an important new measurement of the top quark made using data provided by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
General Physics
Jul 17, 2024
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New experimental results show particles called muons can be corralled into beams suitable for high-energy collisions, paving the way for new physics.
General Physics
Jul 17, 2024
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A team including researchers from the Laboratory for High Energy Physics at the University of Bern has successfully measured the interaction rates of neutrinos at unprecedented energies using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ...
General Physics
Jul 16, 2024
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The Belle II experiment is a large research effort aimed at precisely measuring weak-interaction parameters, studying exotic hadrons (i.e., a class of subatomic particles) and searching for new physical phenomena. This effort ...
Particle accelerators are pricey, but their cost comes with good reason: These one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art machines are intricately designed and constructed to help us solve mysteries about what makes up our universe. ...
General Physics
Jul 11, 2024
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The Higgs boson was discovered in the detectors of the Large Hadron Collider a dozen or so years ago. It has proved to be a particle so difficult to produce and observe that, despite the passage of time, its properties are ...
General Physics
Jul 11, 2024
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