International Linear ColliderThe 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.
Desert (particle physics)In the Grand Unified Theory of particle physics (GUT), the desert refers to a theorized gap in energy scales, between approximately the electroweak energy scale–conventionally defined as roughly the vacuum expectation value or VeV of the Higgs field (about 246 GeV)–and the GUT scale, in which no unknown interactions appear. It can also be described as a gap in the lengths involved, with no new physics below 10−18 m (the currently probed length scale) and above 10−31 m (the GUT length scale).
Quark modelIn particle physics, the quark model is a classification scheme for hadrons in terms of their valence quarks—the quarks and antiquarks which give rise to the quantum numbers of the hadrons. The quark model underlies "flavor SU(3)", or the Eightfold Way, the successful classification scheme organizing the large number of lighter hadrons that were being discovered starting in the 1950s and continuing through the 1960s. It received experimental verification beginning in the late 1960s and is a valid effective classification of them to date.
Particle Data GroupThe Particle Data Group (PDG) is an international collaboration of particle physicists that compiles and reanalyzes published results related to the properties of particles and fundamental interactions. It also publishes reviews of theoretical results that are phenomenologically relevant, including those in related fields such as cosmology. The PDG currently publishes the Review of Particle Physics and its pocket version, the Particle Physics Booklet, which are printed biennially as books, and updated annually via the World Wide Web.
Generation (particle physics)In particle physics, a generation or family is a division of the elementary particles. Between generations, particles differ by their flavour quantum number and mass, but their electric and strong interactions are identical. There are three generations according to the Standard Model of particle physics. Each generation contains two types of leptons and two types of quarks. The two leptons may be classified into one with electric charge −1 (electron-like) and neutral (neutrino); the two quarks may be classified into one with charge − (down-type) and one with charge + (up-type).
High-energy nuclear physicsHigh-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.
LeptonIn particle physics, a lepton is an elementary particle of half-integer spin (spin ) that does not undergo strong interactions. Two main classes of leptons exist: charged leptons (also known as the electron-like leptons or muons), and neutral leptons (better known as neutrinos). Charged leptons can combine with other particles to form various composite particles such as atoms and positronium, while neutrinos rarely interact with anything, and are consequently rarely observed. The best known of all leptons is the electron.
Large Electron–Positron ColliderThe Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP) was one of the largest particle accelerators ever constructed. It was built at CERN, a multi-national centre for research in nuclear and particle physics near Geneva, Switzerland. LEP collided electrons with positrons at energies that reached 209 GeV. It was a circular collider with a circumference of 27 kilometres built in a tunnel roughly 100 m (300 ft) underground and passing through Switzerland and France. LEP was used from 1989 until 2000.
TevatronThe 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.
Compact Muon SolenoidThe 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.
