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.
Particle detectorIn experimental and applied particle physics, nuclear physics, and nuclear engineering, a particle detector, also known as a radiation detector, is a device used to detect, track, and/or identify ionizing particles, such as those produced by nuclear decay, cosmic radiation, or reactions in a particle accelerator. Detectors can measure the particle energy and other attributes such as momentum, spin, charge, particle type, in addition to merely registering the presence of the particle.
ColliderA collider is a type of particle accelerator that brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. 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.
ATLAS experimentATLAS is the largest general-purpose particle detector experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. The experiment is designed to take advantage of the unprecedented energy available at the LHC and observe phenomena that involve highly massive particles which were not observable using earlier lower-energy accelerators. ATLAS was one of the two LHC experiments involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson in July 2012.
LuminosityLuminosity is an absolute measure of radiated electromagnetic power (light), the radiant power emitted by a light-emitting object over time. In astronomy, luminosity is the total amount of electromagnetic energy emitted per unit of time by a star, galaxy, or other astronomical objects. In SI units, luminosity is measured in joules per second, or watts. In astronomy, values for luminosity are often given in the terms of the luminosity of the Sun, L⊙.
KaonIn particle physics, a kaon (ˈkeɪ.ɒn), also called a K meson and denoted _Kaon, is any of a group of four mesons distinguished by a quantum number called strangeness. In the quark model they are understood to be bound states of a strange quark (or antiquark) and an up or down antiquark (or quark). Kaons have proved to be a copious source of information on the nature of fundamental interactions since their discovery in cosmic rays in 1947.
Center-of-momentum frameIn physics, the center-of-momentum frame (COM frame), also known as zero-momentum frame, is the inertial frame in which the total momentum of the system vanishes. It is unique up to velocity, but not origin. The center of momentum of a system is not a location, but a collection of relative momenta/velocities: a reference frame. Thus "center of momentum" is a short for "center-of-momentum ". A special case of the center-of-momentum frame is the center-of-mass frame: an inertial frame in which the center of mass (which is a single point) remains at the origin.
Invariant massThe invariant mass, rest mass, intrinsic mass, proper mass, or in the case of bound systems simply mass, is the portion of the total mass of an object or system of objects that is independent of the overall motion of the system. More precisely, it is a characteristic of the system's total energy and momentum that is the same in all frames of reference related by Lorentz transformations. If a center-of-momentum frame exists for the system, then the invariant mass of a system is equal to its total mass in that "rest frame".
Mass in special relativityThe word "mass" has two meanings in special relativity: invariant mass (also called rest mass) is an invariant quantity which is the same for all observers in all reference frames, while the relativistic mass is dependent on the velocity of the observer. According to the concept of mass–energy equivalence, invariant mass is equivalent to rest energy, while relativistic mass is equivalent to relativistic energy (also called total energy).
Mass–energy equivalenceIn physics, mass–energy equivalence is the relationship between mass and energy in a system's rest frame, where the two quantities differ only by a multiplicative constant and the units of measurement. The principle is described by the physicist Albert Einstein's formula: . In a reference frame where the system is moving, its relativistic energy and relativistic mass (instead of rest mass) obey the same formula. The formula defines the energy E of a particle in its rest frame as the product of mass (m) with the speed of light squared (c2).
