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.
On July 4, 2012, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland announced with great fanfare that they had successfully detected the Higgs boson, the manifestation of the mechanism that gives some elementary ...
General Physics
Nov 3, 2025
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For the first time, by studying quantum correlations between triplets of secondary particles created during high-energy collisions in the LHC accelerator, it has been possible to observe their coherent production. This achievement ...
General Physics
Oct 16, 2025
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Muon beams can now be created in a device that is the length of a ruler.
Members of the STAR collaboration, a group of physicists collecting and analyzing data from particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), have published a new high-precision analysis of data on the number ...
General Physics
Sep 29, 2025
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A lot of the science from our accelerators is published long after collisions end, so storing experimental data for future physicists is crucial.
General Physics
Sep 25, 2025
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A new LHCb analysis confirms a previously observed tension with the Standard Model, but more data and improved theoretical calculations are needed to determine whether new physics is at play.
General Physics
Sep 24, 2025
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This summer, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) took a breath of fresh air. Normally filled with beams of protons, the 27-km ring was reconfigured to enable its first oxygen–oxygen and neon–neon collisions. First results from ...
General Physics
Sep 18, 2025
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An international collaboration has developed a new diagnostic technique for measuring ultra-short particle beams at STFC's Central Laser Facility. This collaboration is led by the University of Michigan and Queen's University ...
Plasma Physics
Sep 15, 2025
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The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is tough on electronics. Situated inside a 17-mile-long tunnel that runs in a circle under the border between Switzerland and France, this massive scientific instrument accelerates particles ...
General Physics
Jul 25, 2025
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Researchers from Trinity College Dublin's School of Engineering have built a powerful new machine that lets us watch precisely what happens when tiny particles—far smaller than a grain of sand—hit a surface at extremely high ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 24, 2025
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