The Cosmotron was a particle accelerator

Particle accelerator

A particle accelerator is a device that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams. An ordinary CRT television set is a simple form of accelerator. There are two basic types: electrostatic and oscillating field accelerators.In...

, specifically a proton

Proton

The proton is a subatomic particle with the symbol or and a positive electric charge of 1 elementary charge. One or more protons are present in the nucleus of each atom, along with neutrons. The number of protons in each atom is its atomic number....

 synchrotron

Synchrotron

A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator in which the magnetic field and the electric field are carefully synchronised with the travelling particle beam. The proton synchrotron was originally conceived by Sir Marcus Oliphant...

, at Brookhaven National Laboratory

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Brookhaven National Laboratory , is a United States national laboratory located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base...

. Its construction was approved by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission

United States Atomic Energy Commission

The United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...

 in 1948, it reached its full energy in 1953, and it continued running until 1968. It was the first particle accelerator to impart kinetic energy

Kinetic energy

The kinetic energy of an object is the energy which it possesses due to its motion.It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its acceleration, the body maintains this kinetic energy unless its speed changes...

 in the range of GeV

GEV

GEV or GeV may stand for:*GeV or gigaelectronvolt, a unit of energy equal to billion electron volts*GEV or Grid Enabled Vehicle that is fully or partially powered by the electric grid, see plug-in electric vehicle...

 to a single particle, accelerating protons to 3.3 GeV. It was also the first accelerator to allow the extraction of the particle beam

Particle beam

A particle beam is a stream of charged or neutral particles which may be directed by magnets and focused by electrostatic lenses, although they may also be self-focusing ....

 for experiments located physically outside the accelerator. It was used to observe a number of meson

Meson

In particle physics, mesons are subatomic particles composed of one quark and one antiquark, bound together by the strong interaction. Because mesons are composed of sub-particles, they have a physical size, with a radius roughly one femtometer: 10−15 m, which is about the size of a proton...

s previously seen only in cosmic ray

Cosmic ray

Cosmic rays are energetic charged subatomic particles, originating from outer space. They may produce secondary particles that penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and surface. The term ray is historical as cosmic rays were thought to be electromagnetic radiation...

s, and to make the first discoveries of heavy, unstable particles (called V particle

V particle

In particle physics, V is a generic name for heavy, unstable subatomic particles that decay into a pair of particles, thereby producing a characteristic letter V in a bubble chamber or other particle detector. Such particles were first detected using the Cosmotron particle accelerator at...

s at the time).