collider

at CERN A collider is a type of particle accelerator that brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. Compared to other particle accelerators in which the moving particles collide with a stationary matter target, colliders can achieve higher collision energies. Colliders may either be ring accelerators or linear accelerators. Colliders are used as a research tool in particle physics by accelerating particles to very high kinetic energy and letting them impact other particles. Analysis of the byproducts of these collisions gives scientists good evidence of the structure of the subatomic world and the laws of nature governing it. These may become apparent only at high energies and for extremely short periods of time, and therefore may be hard or impossible to study in other ways.

at CERN A collider is a type of particle accelerator that brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. Compared to other particle accelerators in which the moving particles collide with a stationary matter target, colliders can achieve higher collision energies. Colliders may either be ring accelerators or linear accelerators. Colliders are used as a research tool in particle physics by accelerating particles to very high kinetic energy and letting them impact other particles. Analysis of the byproducts of these collisions gives scientists good evidence of the structure of the subatomic world and the laws of nature governing it. These may become apparent only at high energies and for extremely short periods of time, and therefore may be hard or impossible to study in other ways. ==Explanation== In particle physics one gains knowledge about elementary particles by accelerating particles to very high kinetic energy and guiding them to collide with other particles. For sufficiently high energy, a reaction occurs that transforms the particles into other particles. Detecting these products gives insight into the physics involved. To do such experiments there are two possible setups: Fixed target setup: A beam of particles (the projectiles) is accelerated with a particle accelerator, and as collision partner, one puts a stationary target into the path of the beam. Collider: Two beams of particles are accelerated and the beams are directed against each other, so that the particles collide while flying in opposite directions. The collider setup is harder to construct but has the great advantage that according to special relativity the energy of an inelastic collision between two particles approaching each other with a given velocity is not just 4 times as high as in the case of one particle resting (as it would be in non-relativistic physics); it can be orders of magnitude higher if the collision velocity is near the speed of light. In the case of a collider where the collision point is at rest in the laboratory frame (i.e. \vec p_1 = -\vec p_2 ), the center of mass energy E_\mathrm{cm} (the energy available for producing new particles in the collision) is simply E_\mathrm{cm} = E_1 + E_2 , where E_1 and E_2 is the total energy of a particle from each beam. For a fixed target experiment where particle 2 is at rest, E_\mathrm{cm}^2 = m_1^2 + m_2^2 + 2 m_2 E_1 . ==See also== List of colliders Fixed-target experiment Large Electron–Positron Collider Large Hadron Collider Very Large Hadron Collider Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider International Linear Collider Storage ring Tevatron International Conference on Photonic, Electronic and Atomic Collisions Future Circular Collider ==References== ==External links== LHC - The Large Hadron Collider on the web The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)

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