Collider



         


In particle physics one gains knowledge about elementary particles by accelerating particles to very high kinetic energy and letting them impact on other particles. For sufficiently high energy, a reaction happens that transforms the particles into other particles. Detecting these products gives insight into the physics involved.

To do such experiments there are obviously two possible setups:

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 particle 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) but can be orders of magnitude higher for relativistic speeds.

High-end colliders are built as ring accelerators -- with the exception of the proposed TESLA facility which is planned as a linear accelerator. -- See particle accelerators for further discussion.





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