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.
So-called forever chemicals or PFAS compounds are a growing environmental problem. An innovative approach to treating PFAS‐contaminated water and soil now comes from accelerator physics: high‐energy electrons can break down ...
Environment
Jan 21, 2026
2
56
Scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have, for the first time, demonstrated a technique that synchronizes ultrashort X-ray pulses at the X-ray free-electron laser SwissFEL. This achievement opens new possibilities ...
Optics & Photonics
Jan 7, 2026
0
45
Researchers from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), have designed innovative technology that can generate both high-energy and high-brightness ...
General Physics
Jan 6, 2026
2
142
Europe's physics lab CERN on Thursday said private donors had pledged $1 billion toward the construction of a new particle accelerator that would be by far the world's biggest.
General Physics
Dec 18, 2025
0
843
All experiments broke records in the final full operating year of the third run of the LHC.
General Physics
Dec 10, 2025
0
32
The chief of the CERN physics laboratory says China's decision to pause its major particle accelerator project presents an "opportunity" to ensure Europe's rival plan goes ahead.
General Physics
Dec 9, 2025
4
666
A boiling sea of quarks and gluons, including virtual ones—this is how we can imagine the main phase of high-energy proton collisions. It would seem that particles here have significantly more opportunities to evolve than ...
General Physics
Dec 4, 2025
4
138
Although its existence had been theorized for decades, the Higgs boson was finally observed to exist in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Since then, it has continued to be heavily studied at the LHC. Now, ...
The CMS collaboration reports the first measurement of the quantum properties of a family of tetraquarks that was recently discovered at the LHC.
General Physics
Dec 3, 2025
0
67
The Isotope Separator On-Line facility (ISOLDE) directs a proton beam from the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB) onto specially developed thick targets, producing low-energy beams of radioactive nuclei—those with too many ...
General Physics
Dec 1, 2025
0
13
