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.
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
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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
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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
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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
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Energy that would normally go to waste inside powerful particle accelerators could be used to create valuable medical isotopes, scientists have found.
General Physics
Nov 25, 2025
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A novel beam diagnostic instrument developed by researchers in the University of Liverpool's QUASAR Group has been approved for use in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's most powerful particle accelerator.
General Physics
Nov 17, 2025
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A particle accelerator that produces intense X-rays could be squeezed into a device that fits on a table, my colleagues and I have found in a new research project.
Optics & Photonics
Nov 13, 2025
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The experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) detect rare events on a daily basis, but some are exceptionally rare, such as this latest result from the CMS collaboration. For the first time, the collaboration has observed ...
General Physics
Nov 3, 2025
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There is a limit to how big we can build particle colliders on Earth, whether that is because of limited space or limited economics. Since size is equivalent to energy output for particle colliders, that also means there's ...
General Physics
Nov 3, 2025
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