{"id":31213,"date":"2022-04-20T09:34:36","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T09:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyatnightmagazine.com\/?p=107628"},"modified":"2022-04-20T09:44:10","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T09:44:10","slug":"a-beginners-guide-to-particle-accelerators","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/a-beginners-guide-to-particle-accelerators\/","title":{"rendered":"A beginner\u2019s guide to particle accelerators"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Toby Friend\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 20 April 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Physicists don\u2019t just gather data from the stars. Particle accelerators also feature big in modern experimentation.<\/p>\n

Particle accelerators often have a toroidal shape, looping particles round and round, boosting their energy as they go.<\/p>\n

The earliest example of such an accelerator was developed in 1930 by Ernest Lawrence and measured only 5 inches (12.7cm) across. The largest to date has a diameter of more than 5 miles (8km)!<\/p>\n

By attaching detectors at various points, particle physicists<\/a> are able to observe physical events at extraordinary energies.<\/p>\n

Some experiments have stood out in recent history.<\/p>\n

The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland involves the largest particle detector ever made.<\/p>\n

It is a cylinder 46m long and 25m in diameter, with 100 million sensors.<\/p>\n

For more, read our interview with theoretical physicist John Ellis<\/a> or listen to our podcast interview with physicist Harry Cliff<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"""\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
The ATLAs experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Credit: CERN \/ Maximilien Brice<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

In 2012, ATLAS was key to confirming the existence of the Higgs field, which is thought to help confer particles with some of their mass.<\/p>\n

It did this by detecting the particle associated with this field: the Higgs boson. This discovery added more confirmation to the Standard Model (a physicists\u2019 default theory of fundamental physics).<\/p>\n

But another series of experiments did the opposite.<\/p>\n

In 2001, physicists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory\u2019s accelerator <\/span>siphoned off a beam of muons (a bit like massive electrons) into a magnetic ring in the hope of establishing a so-called\u2018g\u2019 value.<\/p>\n

Their results, which were corroborated at Fermilab\u2019s accelerator in 2019, indicated that the \u2018g\u2019 value was not what the <\/span>Standard Model predicted.<\/p>\n

But because the results are not as statistically significant as they would like, physicists are holding off from saying if they are indicative of a new theory.<\/p>\n

This guide originally appeared in the May 2022 issue of <\/strong><\/em>BBC Sky at Night Magazine<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n

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