Category
Experimental physics
Related concepts (19)
International Linear Collider
The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a proposed linear particle accelerator. It is planned to have a collision energy of 500 GeV initially, with the possibility for a later upgrade to 1000 GeV (1 TeV). Although early proposed locations for the ILC were Japan, Europe (CERN) and the USA (Fermilab), the Kitakami highland in the Iwate prefecture of northern Japan has been the focus of ILC design efforts since 2013. The Japanese government is willing to contribute half of the costs, according to the coordinator of study for detectors at the ILC.
High-energy nuclear physics
High-energy nuclear physics studies the behavior of nuclear matter in energy regimes typical of high-energy physics. The primary focus of this field is the study of heavy-ion collisions, as compared to lighter atoms in other particle accelerators. At sufficient collision energies, these types of collisions are theorized to produce the quark–gluon plasma. In peripheral nuclear collisions at high energies one expects to obtain information on the electromagnetic production of leptons and mesons that are not accessible in electron–positron colliders due to their much smaller luminosities.
Tevatron
The Tevatron was a circular particle accelerator (active until 2011) in the United States, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (also known as Fermilab), east of Batavia, Illinois, and is the second highest energy particle collider ever built, after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland. The Tevatron was a synchrotron that accelerated protons and antiprotons in a ring to energies of up to 1 TeV, hence its name.
Interaction point
In particle physics, an interaction point (IP) is the place where particles collide in an accelerator experiment. The nominal interaction point is the design position, which may differ from the real or physics interaction point, where the particles actually collide. A related, but distinct, concept is the primary vertex: the reconstructed location of an individual particle collision. For fixed target experiments, the interaction point is the point where beam and target interact. For colliders, it is the place where the beams interact.
Particle identification
Particle identification is the process of using information left by a particle passing through a particle detector to identify the type of particle. Particle identification reduces backgrounds and improves measurement resolutions, and is essential to many analyses at particle detectors. Charged particles have been identified using a variety of techniques. All methods rely on a measurement of the momentum in a tracking chamber combined with a measurement of the velocity to determine the charged particle mass, and therefore its identity.
Compact Muon Solenoid
The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is one of two large general-purpose particle physics detectors built on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland and France. The goal of the CMS experiment is to investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, extra dimensions, and particles that could make up dark matter. CMS is 21 metres long, 15 m in diameter, and weighs about 14,000 tonnes. Over 4,000 people, representing 206 scientific institutes and 47 countries, form the CMS collaboration who built and now operate the detector.
Proton Synchrotron
The Proton Synchrotron (PS, sometimes also referred to as CPS) is a particle accelerator at CERN. It is CERN's first synchrotron, beginning its operation in 1959. For a brief period the PS was the world's highest energy particle accelerator. It has since served as a pre-accelerator for the Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR) and the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), and is currently part of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) accelerator complex. In addition to protons, PS has accelerated alpha particles, oxygen and sulfur nuclei, electrons, positrons, and antiprotons.
Calorimeter (particle physics)
In experimental particle physics, a calorimeter is a type of detector that measures the energy of particles. Particles enter the calorimeter and initiate a particle shower in which their energy is deposited in the calorimeter, collected, and measured. The energy may be measured in its entirety, requiring total containment of the particle shower, or it may be sampled.
Particle shower
In particle physics, a shower is a cascade of secondary particles produced as the result of a high-energy particle interacting with dense matter. The incoming particle interacts, producing multiple new particles with lesser energy; each of these then interacts, in the same way, a process that continues until many thousands, millions, or even billions of low-energy particles are produced. These are then stopped in the matter and absorbed. There are two basic types of showers.
Faster-than-light neutrino anomaly
In 2011, the OPERA experiment mistakenly observed neutrinos appearing to travel faster than light. Even before the source of the error was discovered, the result was considered anomalous because speeds higher than that of light in vacuum are generally thought to violate special relativity, a cornerstone of the modern understanding of physics for over a century. OPERA scientists announced the results of the experiment in September 2011 with the stated intent of promoting further inquiry and debate.