List of accelerators in particle physics
Encyclopedia
A list of particle accelerator
s used for particle physics experiments
. Some early particle accelerators that more properly did nuclear physics
, but existed prior to the separation of particle physics from that field, are also included. Although a modern accelerator complex usually has several stages of accelerators, only accelerators whose output has been used directly for experiments are listed.
[1] First accelerator built at the current Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
site, then known as the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory ("Rad Lab" for short)
s, or accelerated particles for use in subsequently built colliders.
| High Current Proton Accelerator
| Neutron Materials Research, Proton Radiography, High Energy Neutron Research, Ultra Cold Neutrons
| Los Alamos Neutron Science Center originally Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility
| Los Alamos National Laboratory
| 1972 - Present
| Linear (800 meters) and Circular (30 m)
| Protons
| 800 MeV
as hypothetical examples or optimistic projects by particle physicists.
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...
s used for particle physics experiments
Particle physics experiments
Particle physics experiments briefly discusses a number of past, present, and proposed experiments with particle accelerators, throughout the world. In addition, some important accelerator interactions are discussed...
. Some early particle accelerators that more properly did nuclear physics
Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...
, but existed prior to the separation of particle physics from that field, are also included. Although a modern accelerator complex usually has several stages of accelerators, only accelerators whose output has been used directly for experiments are listed.
Early accelerators
These all used single beams with fixed targets. They tended to have very briefly run, inexpensive, and unnamed experiments.Cyclotrons
| Accelerator | Location | Years of operation |
Shape | Accelerated Particle | Kinetic Energy |
Notes and discoveries made |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 cm cyclotron Cyclotron In technology, a cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator. In physics, the cyclotron frequency or gyrofrequency is the frequency of a charged particle moving perpendicularly to the direction of a uniform magnetic field, i.e. a magnetic field of constant magnitude and direction... |
University of California, Berkeley University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA... |
1931 | Circular | H2+ | 1.0 MeV MEV MeV and meV are multiples and submultiples of the electron volt unit referring to 1,000,000 eV and 0.001 eV, respectively.Mev or MEV may refer to:In entertainment:* Musica Elettronica Viva, an Italian musical group... |
Proof of concept |
| 28 cm cyclotron Cyclotron In technology, a cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator. In physics, the cyclotron frequency or gyrofrequency is the frequency of a charged particle moving perpendicularly to the direction of a uniform magnetic field, i.e. a magnetic field of constant magnitude and direction... |
University of California, Berkeley | 1932 | Circular | 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.... |
1.2 MeV | |
| 68 cm cyclotron | University of California, Berkeley | 1932-1936 | Circular | Deuteron | 4.8 MeV | Investigated deuteron-nucleus interactions |
| 94 cm cyclotron | University of California, Berkeley | 1937-1938 | Circular | Deuteron | 8 MeV | Discovered many isotope Isotope Isotopes are variants of atoms of a particular chemical element, which have differing numbers of neutrons. Atoms of a particular element by definition must contain the same number of protons but may have a distinct number of neutrons which differs from atom to atom, without changing the designation... s |
| 152 cm cyclotron | University of California, Berkeley | 1939- | Circular | Deuteron | 16 MeV | Discovered many isotopes |
| 467 cm cyclotron | Berkeley Rad Lab[1] | 1942- | Circular | Various | >100 MeV | Research on uranium Uranium Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons... isotope separation |
| Calutron Calutron A calutron is a mass spectrometer used for separating the isotopes of uranium. It was developed by Ernest O. Lawrence during the Manhattan Project and was similar to the cyclotron invented by Lawrence. Its name is a concatenation of Cal. U.-tron, in tribute to the University of California,... s |
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a multiprogram science and technology national laboratory managed for the United States Department of Energy by UT-Battelle. ORNL is the DOE's largest science and energy laboratory. ORNL is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near Knoxville... |
1943- | "Horseshoe" | Uranium nuclei |
Used to separate isotopes for the Manhattan project Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army... |
|
| 95-inch cyclotron | Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory The Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory operated from 1949 to 2002. It was most notable for its contributions to the development of proton therapy.... |
1949 - 2002 | Circular | Proton | 160 MeV | Used for nuclear physics 1949 - ~ 1961, development of clinical proton therapy until 2002 |
| TRIUMF Cyclotron | TRIUMF TRIUMF TRIUMF is Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics. Its headquarters are located on the south campus of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia. TRIUMF houses the world's largest cyclotron, source of 500 MeV protons, which was named an IEEE Milestone... , Vancouver BC |
1974 - | Circular | H- ion | 500 MeV | Not an early accelerator, but a re-envisioning of the cyclotron concept, having multiple beam extractions, and hosting many multi-year experiments. Since its inception, has been the world's largest cyclotron, at 17.9m; six sector magnet configuration, with curving outer tips of pole pieces reflecting the effect of relativity on the cyclotron relation at its full acceleration velocity |
[1] First accelerator built at the current Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory conducting unclassified scientific research. It is located on the grounds of the University of California, Berkeley, in the Berkeley Hills above the central campus...
site, then known as the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory ("Rad Lab" for short)
Other early accelerator types
| Accelerator | Location | Years of operation |
Shape and size |
Accelerated particle |
Kinetic Energy |
Notes and discoveries made |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cockcroft John Cockcroft Sir John Douglas Cockcroft OM KCB CBE FRS was a British physicist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for splitting the atomic nucleus with Ernest Walton, and was instrumental in the development of nuclear power.... and Walton's Ernest Walton Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton was an Irish physicist and Nobel laureate for his work with John Cockcroft with "atom-smashing" experiments done at Cambridge University in the early 1930s, and so became the first person in history to artificially split the atom, thus ushering the nuclear age... electrostatic accelerator |
Cavendish Laboratory Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the university's School of Physical Sciences. It was opened in 1874 as a teaching laboratory.... |
1932 | See Cockroft- Walton generator Cockcroft-Walton generator The Cockcroft–Walton generator, or multiplier, is an electric circuit which generates a high DC voltage from a low voltage AC or pulsing DC input... |
Proton | 0.7 MeV | First to artificially split the nucleus Atomic nucleus The nucleus is the very dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom. It was discovered in 1911, as a result of Ernest Rutherford's interpretation of the famous 1909 Rutherford experiment performed by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, under the direction of Rutherford. The... (Lithium Lithium Lithium is a soft, silver-white metal that belongs to the alkali metal group of chemical elements. It is represented by the symbol Li, and it has the atomic number 3. Under standard conditions it is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly... ) |
Synchrotrons
| Accelerator | Location | Years of operation |
Shape and size |
Accelerated particle |
Kinetic Energy |
Notes and discoveries made |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cosmotron Cosmotron The Cosmotron was a particle accelerator, specifically a proton synchrotron, at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Its construction was approved by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in 1948, it reached its full energy in 1953, and it continued running until 1968... |
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... |
1953-1968 | Circular ring (72 meters around) |
Proton | 3.3 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... |
Discovery of 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, first artificial production of some 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. |
| Birmingham Synchrotron |
University of Birmingham University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus... |
1953-1967 | Proton | 1 GeV | ||
| Bevatron Bevatron The Bevatron was a historic particle accelerator — specifically, a weak-focusing proton synchrotron — at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S.A., which began operating in 1954. The antiproton was discovered there in 1955, resulting in the 1959 Nobel Prize in physics for Emilio... |
Berkeley Rad Lab i.e. LBNL | 1954-~1970 | "Race track" | Proton | 6.2 GeV | strange particle experiments, Antiproton Antiproton The antiproton is the antiparticle of the proton. Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilated in a burst of energy.... and antineutron discovered, resonances discovered |
| Bevalac, combination of SuperHILAC linear accelerator, a diverting tube, then the Bevatron | Berkeley Rad Lab i.e. LBNL | ~1970-1993 | linear accelerator followed by "Race track" | any and all sufficiently stable nuclei could be accelerated | observation of compressed nuclear matter. Depositing ions in tumors in cancer research. | |
| Saturne | Saclay Saclay Saclay is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.It is best known for the large scientific facility CEA Saclay, mostly dealing with nuclear and particle physics.... , France |
3 GeV | ||||
| Synchrophasotron Synchrophasotron A synchrophasotron is a type of the synchrotron that accelerates protons to several GeVs . It has fixed-orbit radius, magnetic field that increases with time and variable frequency of accelerating voltage.... |
Dubna Dubna Dubna is a town in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It has a status of naukograd , being home to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, an international nuclear physics research centre and one of the largest scientific foundations in the country. It is also home to MKB Raduga, a defence aerospace company... , Russia |
December 1949-present | 10 GeV | |||
| Zero Gradient Synchrotron |
Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is the first science and engineering research national laboratory in the United States, receiving this designation on July 1, 1946. It is the largest national laboratory by size and scope in the Midwest... |
1963-1979 | 12.5 GeV | |||
| Proton Synchrotron Proton Synchrotron The Proton Synchrotron is the first major particle accelerator at CERN, built as a 28 GeV proton accelerator in the late 1950s and put into operation in 1959. It takes the protons from the Proton Synchrotron Booster at a kinetic energy of 1.4 GeV and lead ions from the Low Energy Ion Ring at 72... |
CERN CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border... |
1959-present | Circular ring (600 meters around) |
Proton | 28 GeV | Used to feed ISR Intersecting Storage Rings The ISR was a particle accelerator at CERN. It was the world's first hadron collider, and ran from 1971 to 1984, with a maximum center of mass energy of 62 GeV... , SPS Super Proton Synchrotron The Super Proton Synchrotron is a particle accelerator of the synchrotron type at CERN. It is housed in a circular tunnel, in circumference, straddling the border of France and Switzerland near Geneva, Switzerland. The SPS was designed by a team led by John Adams, director-general of what was... , LHC Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature.... |
| Alternating Gradient Synchrotron Alternating Gradient Synchrotron The Alternating Gradient Synchrotron is a particle accelerator located at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, New York, USA.... |
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... |
1960- | Proton | 33 GeV | J/Ψ, muon neutrino Neutrino A neutrino is an electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle with a half-integer spin, chirality and a disputed but small non-zero mass. It is able to pass through ordinary matter almost unaffected... , CP violation CP violation In particle physics, CP violation is a violation of the postulated CP-symmetry: the combination of C-symmetry and P-symmetry . CP-symmetry states that the laws of physics should be the same if a particle were interchanged with its antiparticle , and left and right were swapped... in kaon Kaon In particle physics, a kaon is any one of a group of four mesons distinguished by the fact that they carry a quantum number called strangeness... s, injects polarized protons into RHIC Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is one of two existing heavy-ion colliders, and the only spin-polarized proton collider in the world. It is located at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York and operated by an international team of researchers... |
Fixed-target accelerators
More modern accelerators that were also run in fixed target mode; often, they will also have been run as colliderCollider
A collider is a type of a particle accelerator involving directed beams of particles.Colliders may either be ring accelerators or linear accelerators.-Explanation:...
s, or accelerated particles for use in subsequently built colliders.
| Accelerator | Location | Years of operation |
Shape and size |
Accelerated particle |
Kinetic Energy |
Experiments | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SLAC Linac | SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S... |
1966-present | 3 km linear accelerator |
Electron/ Positron Positron The positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. The positron has an electric charge of +1e, a spin of ½, and has the same mass as an electron... |
50 GeV | Repeatedly upgraded, used to feed PEP, SPEAR SPEAR SPEAR was a collider at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. It began running in 1972, colliding electrons and positrons with an energy of... , SLC, and PEP-II |
|
| Fermilab Booster | Fermilab Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics... |
1970-2011 | Circular Synchrotron | Protons | 8 GeV | MiniBooNE MiniBooNE MiniBooNE is an experiment at Fermilab designed to observe neutrino oscillations . A neutrino beam consisting primarily of muon neutrinos is directed at a detector filled with 800 tons of mineral oil and lined with 1,280 photomultiplier tubes... |
|
| Fermilab Main Injector | Fermilab Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics... |
1995-2011 | Circular Synchrotron | Protons and antiprotons | 150 GeV | MINOS MINOS MINOS is a particle physics experiment designed to study the phenomena of neutrino oscillations, first discovered by a Super-Kamiokande experiment in 1998... |
|
| Fermilab Main Ring | Fermilab Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics... |
1970-1995 | Circular Synchrotron | Protons and antiprotons | 400 GeV (until 1979), 150 GeV thereafter | ||
| Super Proton Synchrotron Super Proton Synchrotron The Super Proton Synchrotron is a particle accelerator of the synchrotron type at CERN. It is housed in a circular tunnel, in circumference, straddling the border of France and Switzerland near Geneva, Switzerland. The SPS was designed by a team led by John Adams, director-general of what was... |
CERN CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border... |
1980-present | Circular Synchrotron | Protons and ions | 480 GeV | COMPASS COMPASS experiment The NA58 experiment, or COMPASS is a fixed-target particle physics experiment at the Super Proton Synchrotron, a particle accelerator at the European Organization for Nuclear Research... , OPERA and ICARUS at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso is a particle physics laboratory of the INFN, situated near the Gran Sasso mountain in Italy, between the towns of L'Aquila and Teramo, about 120 km from Rome. In addition to a surface portion of the laboratory, there are extensive underground facilities... |
|
| Bates Linear Accelerator | Middleton, MA | 1967-2005 | 500 MeV recirculating linac and storage ring | polarized electrons | 1 GeV | ||
| Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) | Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility , commonly called Jefferson Lab or JLab, is a U.S. national laboratory located in Newport News, Virginia. Since June 1, 2006, it has been operated by Jefferson Science Associates, LLC, a joint venture between Southeastern Universities Research... , Newport News, VA |
1995-present | 6 GeV recirculating linac (upgrading to 12 GeV) | polarized electrons | 6 GeV | DVCS, PrimEx II, Qweak | First large-scale deployment of superconducting RF Superconducting Radio Frequency Superconducting Radio Frequency science and technology involves the application of electrical superconductors to radio frequency devices. The ultra-low electrical resistivity of a superconducting material allows an RF resonator to obtain an extremely high quality factor, Q... technology. |
| ELSA | Physikalisches Institut der Universität Bonn, Germany | 1987-present | synchrotron and stretcher | (polarized) electrons | 3.5 GeV | Crystal Barrel | |
| ISIS neutron source ISIS neutron source ISIS is a pulsed neutron and muon source. It is situated at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom and is part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council... |
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Rutherford Appleton Laboratory The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council . It is located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus at Chilton near Didcot in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom... , Chilton Chilton, Oxfordshire Chilton is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse about southwest of Didcot. The parish was part of Berkshire until the 1974 local government boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire.... , Oxfordshire Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire .... , United Kingdom United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages... |
1984-present | H- Linac followed by proton RCS | Protons | 800 MeV | Highest power operational pulsed proton beam in the world | |
| MAMI Mainz Microtron The Mainz Microtron , abbreviated MAMI, is an electron accelerator of the microtron type, in which electrons are accelerated to relativistic velocities. It is operated by the Institute for Nuclear Physics of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. Its purpose is the generation of polarized... |
Mainz, Germany | 1.5 GeV accelerator | polarized electrons | ||||
| Tevatron Tevatron The Tevatron is a circular particle accelerator in the United States, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , just east of Batavia, Illinois, and is the second highest energy particle collider in the world after the Large Hadron Collider... |
Fermilab | 1983-2011 | Superconducting Circular Synchrotron | Protons | 980 GeV | ||
| Spallation Neutron Source Spallation Neutron Source The Spallation Neutron Source is an accelerator-based neutron source facility that provides the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development... |
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a multiprogram science and technology national laboratory managed for the United States Department of Energy by UT-Battelle. ORNL is the DOE's largest science and energy laboratory. ORNL is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near Knoxville... |
2006 - Present | Linear (335 m) and Circular (248 m) | Protons | 800 MeV - 1 GeV |
| High Current Proton Accelerator
| Neutron Materials Research, Proton Radiography, High Energy Neutron Research, Ultra Cold Neutrons
| Los Alamos Neutron Science Center originally Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility
| Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...
| 1972 - Present
| Linear (800 meters) and Circular (30 m)
| Protons
| 800 MeV
Electron-positron colliders
| Accelerator | Location | Years of operation |
Shape and circumference |
Electron energy |
Positron energy |
Experiments | Notable Discoveries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AdA | Frascati, Italy; Orsay, France | 1961-1964 | Circular, 3 meters | 250 MeV | 250 MeV | Touschek Bruno Touschek Bruno Touschek was an Austrian physicist, a survivor of the Holocaust, and initiator of research on electron-positron colliders.-Biography:... effect (1963); first e+e- interactions recorded (1964) |
|
| Princeton-Stanford (e-e-) | Stanford, California | 1962-1967 | Two-ring, 12 m | 300 MeV | 300 MeV | e+e- pair production | |
| VEP-1 (e-e-) | Novosibirsk, Soviet Union | 1964-1968 | Two-ring, 2.70 m | 130 MeV | 130 MeV | e-e- scattering; QED radiative effects confirmed | |
| VEPP-2 | Novosibirsk Novosibirsk Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District... , Soviet Union |
1965-1974 | Circular, 11.5 m | 700 MeV | 700 MeV | OLYA, CMD | multihadron production (1966),  (1966),  (1971) |
| SPEAR SPEAR SPEAR was a collider at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. It began running in 1972, colliding electrons and positrons with an energy of... |
SLAC | 1972-1990(?) | Mark I Mark I (detector) The Mark I, also known as the SLAC-LBL Magnetic Detector, was a particle detector that operated at the interaction point of the SPEAR collider from 1973 to 1977. It was the first 4π detector, i.e... , Mark II, Mark III |
Discovery of Charmonium states | |||
| VEPP-2M | Novosibirsk Novosibirsk Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District... , Soviet Union |
1974-2000 | Circular, 17.88 m | 700 MeV | 700 MeV | ND ND Experiment Neutral Detector is a detector for particle physics experiments created by the team of physicists in theBudker Institute of Nuclear Physics , Novosibirsk, Russia.... , SND, CMD-2 |
e+e- cross sections, radiative decays of ρ, ω, and φ mesons |
| DORIS | DESY | 1974-1993 | Circular, 300m | 5 GeV | 5 GeV | ARGUS, Crystal Ball, DASP, PLUTO | Oscillation in neutral B mesons |
| PETRA PETRA PETRA is one of the particle accelerators at DESY in Hamburg, Germany. From 1978 to 1986 it was used to study electron–positron collisions. It was here that the TASSO collaboration found the first direct evidence for gluons in three jet events... |
DESY | 1978-1986 | Circular, 2km | 20 GeV | 20 GeV | JADE, MARK-J, PLUTO, TASSO | Discovery of the gluon Gluon Gluons are elementary particles which act as the exchange particles for the color force between quarks, analogous to the exchange of photons in the electromagnetic force between two charged particles.... in three jet events |
| CESR Cornell Electron Storage Ring The Cornell Electron Storage Ring is an electron-positron collider at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, United States. The CLEO and CUSB particle detectors collected data at CESR, and the CHESS facility used the synchrotron radiation to perform a variety of studies.CESR was built in the... |
Cornell University | 1979-2002 | Circular, 768m | 6 GeV | 6 GeV | CUSB, CHESS, CLEO, CLEO-2, CLEO-2.5, CLEO-3 | First observation of B decay, charmless and "radiative penguin" B decays |
| PEP | SLAC | 1980-1990(?) | Mark II | ||||
| SLC | SLAC | 1988-1998(?) | Addition to SLAC Linac |
45 GeV | 45 GeV | SLD, Mark II | First linear collider |
| LEP Large Electron-Positron Collider The Large Electron–Positron Collider 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 was a circular collider with a circumference of 27 kilometres built in a... |
CERN | 1989-2000 | Circular, 27km | 104 GeV | 104 GeV | Aleph, Delphi, Opal, L3 | Only 3 light ( ) weakly interacting neutrinos exist, implying only three generations of quarks and leptonsGeneration (particle physics) In particle physics, a generation is a division of the elementary particles. Between generations, particles differ by their quantum number and mass, but their interactions are identical.... |
| BEPC | China | 1989-2004 | Circular, 240m | 2.2 GeV | 2.2 GeV | Beijing Spectrometer (I and II) | |
| VEPP-4M | Novosibirsk Novosibirsk Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District... |
1994- | Circular, 366m | 6.0 GeV | 6.0 GeV | KEDR | |
| PEP-II | SLAC | 1998-2008 | Circular, 2.2 km | 9 GeV | 3.1 GeV | Babar BaBar experiment The BaBar experiment, or simply BaBar, is an international collaboration of more than 500 physicists and engineers studying the subatomic world at energies of approximately ten times the rest mass of a proton . Its design was motivated by the investigation of CP violation... |
Discovery of CP violation CP violation In particle physics, CP violation is a violation of the postulated CP-symmetry: the combination of C-symmetry and P-symmetry . CP-symmetry states that the laws of physics should be the same if a particle were interchanged with its antiparticle , and left and right were swapped... in B meson system |
| KEKB | KEK KEK , known as KEK, is a national organization whose purpose is to operate the largest particle physics laboratory in Japan, which is situated in Tsukuba of Ibaraki prefecture. Established in 1997. The term "KEK" is also used to refer to the laboratory itself, which employs approximately 900 employees... |
1999-2009 | Circular, 3km | 8.0 GeV | 3.5 GeV | Belle Belle experiment The Belle experiment is a particle physics experiment conducted by the Belle Collaboration, an international collaboration of more than 400 physicists and engineers investigating CP-violation effects at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organisation in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.The... |
Discovery of CP violation CP violation In particle physics, CP violation is a violation of the postulated CP-symmetry: the combination of C-symmetry and P-symmetry . CP-symmetry states that the laws of physics should be the same if a particle were interchanged with its antiparticle , and left and right were swapped... in B meson system |
| DAΦNE | Frascati Frascati Frascati is a town and comune in the province of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is closely associated with science, being the location of several international scientific... , Italy |
1999- | Circular, 98m | 0.7 GeV | 0.7 GeV | KLOE | Crab-waist collisions (2007) |
| CESR-c | Cornell University | 2002-2008 | Circular, 768m | 6 GeV | 6 GeV | CHESS, CLEO-c | |
| VEPP-2000 | Novosibirsk Novosibirsk Novosibirsk is the third-largest city in Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and the largest city of Siberia, with a population of 1,473,737 . It is the administrative center of Novosibirsk Oblast as well as of the Siberian Federal District... |
2006- | Circular, 24.4m | 1.0 GeV | 1.0 GeV | SND, CMD-3 | Round beams (2007) |
| BEPC II | China | 2008- | Circular, 240m | 3.7 GeV | 3.7 GeV | Beijing Spectrometer III | |
Hadron colliders
| Accelerator | Location | Years of operation |
Shape and size |
Particles collided |
Beam Beam Beam may refer to:*Beam , a construction element*Beam , the most extreme width of a nautical vessel, or a point alongside the ship at the mid-point of its length*A narrow, propagating stream of particles or energy:... energy |
Experiments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intersecting Storage Rings Intersecting Storage Rings The ISR was a particle accelerator at CERN. It was the world's first hadron collider, and ran from 1971 to 1984, with a maximum center of mass energy of 62 GeV... |
CERN | 1971-1984 | Circular rings (948 m around) |
Proton/ Proton |
31.5 GeV | |
| Super Proton Synchrotron Super Proton Synchrotron The Super Proton Synchrotron is a particle accelerator of the synchrotron type at CERN. It is housed in a circular tunnel, in circumference, straddling the border of France and Switzerland near Geneva, Switzerland. The SPS was designed by a team led by John Adams, director-general of what was... /SpS |
CERN | 1981-1984 | Circular ring (6.9 km around) |
Proton/ Antiproton |
270-315 GeV | UA1 UA1 The UA1 experiment was a high-energy physics experiment that ran at CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron accelerator-collider from 1981 until 1993... , UA2 UA2 The UA2 high energy physics experiment was one of the two major experiments and collaborations at the CERN proton-antiproton collider SPS, and codiscovered the W and Z bosons in 1983, along with UA1.-External links:*****... |
| Tevatron Tevatron The Tevatron is a circular particle accelerator in the United States, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , just east of Batavia, Illinois, and is the second highest energy particle collider in the world after the Large Hadron Collider... Run I |
Fermilab Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics... |
1992-1995 | Circular ring (6.3 km around) |
Proton/ Antiproton |
900 GeV | CDF Collider Detector at Fermilab The Collider Detector at Fermilab experimental collaboration studies high energy particle collisions at the Tevatron,the world's former highest-energy particle accelerator... , D0 D0 experiment The DØ experiment consists of a worldwide collaboration of scientists conducting research on the fundamental nature of matter... |
| Tevatron Tevatron The Tevatron is a circular particle accelerator in the United States, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , just east of Batavia, Illinois, and is the second highest energy particle collider in the world after the Large Hadron Collider... Run II |
Fermilab Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics... |
2001-2011 | Circular ring (6.3 km around) |
Proton/ Antiproton |
980 GeV | CDF Collider Detector at Fermilab The Collider Detector at Fermilab experimental collaboration studies high energy particle collisions at the Tevatron,the world's former highest-energy particle accelerator... , D0 D0 experiment The DØ experiment consists of a worldwide collaboration of scientists conducting research on the fundamental nature of matter... |
| RHIC proton+proton mode |
BNL 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... |
2000-present | Hexagonal rings (3.8 km circumference) |
Polarized Proton/ Proton |
100-250 GeV | PHENIX Phénix Phénix was a small-scale prototype fast breeder reactor, located at the Marcoule nuclear site, near Orange, France. It was a pool-type liquid-metal fast breeder reactor cooled with liquid sodium... , STAR Star A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth... |
| Large Hadron Collider Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature.... |
CERN | 2008-present | Circular rings (27 km around) |
Proton/ Proton |
3.5 TeV TEV TEV may refer to:* TeV, or teraelectronvolt, a measure of energy* Total Enterprise Value, a financial measure* Total Economic Value, an economic measure* Tobacco etch virus, a plant pathogenic virus of the family Potyviridae.... (design: 7 TeV) |
ALICE A Large Ion Collider Experiment ALICE is one of the six detector experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The other five are: ATLAS, CMS, TOTEM, LHCb, and LHCf. ALICE is optimized to study heavy ion collisions. Pb-Pb nuclei collisions will be studied at a centre of mass energy of 2.76 TeV per nucleon... , ATLAS ATLAS experiment ATLAS is one of the six particle detector experiments constructed at the Large Hadron Collider , a new particle accelerator at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland... , CMS Compact Muon Solenoid The Compact Muon Solenoid experiment is one of two large general-purpose particle physics detectors built on the proton-proton Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland and France. Approximately 3,600 people from 183 scientific institutes, representing 38 countries form the CMS collaboration... , LHCb LHCb LHCb is one of six particle physics detector experiments collecting data at the Large Hadron Collider accelerator at CERN. LHCb is a specialized b-physics experiment, that is measuring the parameters of CP violation in the interactions of b-hadrons... , LHCf LHCf The LHCf is a special-purpose Large Hadron Collider experiment for astroparticle physics, and one of seven detectors in the LHC accelerator at CERN. The other six are: ATLAS, ALICE, CMS, MoEDAL, TOTEM, and LHCb... , TOTEM TOTEM TOTal Elastic and diffractive cross section Measurement is one of the six detector experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The other five are: ATLAS, ALICE, CMS, LHCb, and LHCf. It shares intersection point IP5 with the Compact Muon Solenoid... |
Electron-proton colliders
| Accelerator | Location | Years of operation |
Shape and size |
Electron energy |
Proton energy |
Experiments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HERA Hera Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her... |
DESY DESY The DESY is the biggest German research center for particle physics, with sites in Hamburg and Zeuthen.... |
1992(-2007) | Circular ring (6336 meters around) |
27.5 GeV | 920 GeV | H1 H1 (particle detector) H1 is a particle detector in operation at HERA in DESY, Hamburg. It began operating together with HERA in 1992. Leptons are collided with protons by HERA in the interaction point of H1. H1 is operated by an internationalcollaboration of about 400 physicists from 42 institutes in 15 countries... , ZEUS Zeus (particle detector) ZEUS was a particle detector that operated on the HERA particle accelerator at DESY, Hamburg. It began running together with HERA in 1992 and was functional until HERA was decommissioned in June 2007... , HERMES, HERA-B HERA-B HERA-B was an innovative, but ultimately unsuccessful, particle physics detector of the HERA accelerator at DESY.Its primary aim was to measure CP violation in the decays of heavy B-mesons in the late 1990s, several years ahead of the Large Hadron Collider and B Factory programs... |
Ion colliders
| Accelerator | Location | Years of operation |
Shape and size |
Ions collided |
Ion energy |
Experiments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is one of two existing heavy-ion colliders, and the only spin-polarized proton collider in the world. It is located at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York and operated by an international team of researchers... |
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... , New York |
2000-present | Hexagonal rings (3.8 km circumference) |
d-79+; 29+-29+; 79+-79+ |
4.6-100 GeV per nucleon | STAR, PHENIX, Brahms, Phobos |
| Large Hadron Collider, ion mode Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature.... |
CERN | 2008-present | Circular rings (27 km circumference) |
82+-82+ | 2.76 TeV TEV TEV may refer to:* TeV, or teraelectronvolt, a measure of energy* Total Enterprise Value, a financial measure* Total Economic Value, an economic measure* Tobacco etch virus, a plant pathogenic virus of the family Potyviridae.... per nucleon |
ALICE A Large Ion Collider Experiment ALICE is one of the six detector experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The other five are: ATLAS, CMS, TOTEM, LHCb, and LHCf. ALICE is optimized to study heavy ion collisions. Pb-Pb nuclei collisions will be studied at a centre of mass energy of 2.76 TeV per nucleon... , ATLAS ATLAS experiment ATLAS is one of the six particle detector experiments constructed at the Large Hadron Collider , a new particle accelerator at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland... , CMS Compact Muon Solenoid The Compact Muon Solenoid experiment is one of two large general-purpose particle physics detectors built on the proton-proton Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland and France. Approximately 3,600 people from 183 scientific institutes, representing 38 countries form the CMS collaboration... |
Hypothetical accelerators
Besides the real accelerators listed above, there are hypothetical accelerators often usedas hypothetical examples or optimistic projects by particle physicists.
- Planckatron is a term often used colloquially by particle physicists to describe the accelerator with a center-of-mass energy of the order of the Planck scalePlanck scaleIn particle physics and physical cosmology, the Planck scale is an energy scale around 1.22 × 1019 GeV at which quantum effects of gravity become strong...
. It is estimated that the radius of the Planckatron has to be roughly the radius of the Milky Way. - Eloisatron (Eurasiatic Long Intersecting Storage Accelerator) was a project of INFN headed by Antonio Zichichi at the Ettore Majorana Foundation in EriceEriceErice is a historic town and comune in the province of Trapani in Sicily, Italy.Erice is located on top of Mount Erice, at around 750m above sea level, overlooking the city of Trapani, the low western coast towards Marsala, the dramatic Punta del Saraceno and Capo san Vito to the north-east, and...
, SicilySicilySicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
. The center-of-mass energy was planned to be 200 TeV, and the size was planned to span parts of EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and AsiaAsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. - Fermitron was an accelerator sketched by Enrico FermiEnrico FermiEnrico Fermi was an Italian-born, naturalized American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics...
on a notepad in the 1940s proposing an accelerator in stable orbit around the earth. - Arguably also in this category falls the ZevatronZevatronZevatrons, named in analogy to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Bevatron and Fermilab's Tevatron, are highly exotic hypothetical astrophysical sources capable of accelerating particles to 1 ZeV . In 2004 there was a consideration of possibility of galactic jets acting as Zevatrons, due to...
, a term used to describe hypothetical sources for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.
External links
- Judy Goldhaber, "Bevalac Had 40-Year Record of Historic Discoveries". October 9, 1992. http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/Bevalac-nine-lives.html
- High-energy collider parameters from the Particle Data Group
- Particle accelerators around the world
- Lawrence and his laboratory - a history of the early years of accelerator physics at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
- A brief history and review of accelerators (11 pgs, PDF file)
- SLAC beamlines over time
- Accelerators and detectors named Mark at SLAC
- Lawson, J. D. (1997), "Early British Synchrotrons, An Informal History", http://epubs.cclrc.ac.uk/bitstream/1297/RAL-TR-97-011.pdf [accessed 17 May 2009]
- TRIUMF Cyclotron Quick Facts https://cycops.triumf.ca/cycfac.htm