We know a thing or two about particle physics now, don’t we? We have a basic understanding of the various particles and their significance, and we also know about the super important existence of anti-matter. What we have yet to understand is exactly how we do anything with particle physics. After all, these particles are incredibly small. Actually, they are so small that the boundary between the particles actually being particles and not waves is blurred. This is something commonly known as wave-particle duality.
This property makes things incredibly confusing in any normal mindset, so though particles exhibit both qualities, they are primarily labelled particles and thus referred to as such in typical conversation. So, rather than worry about trying to assign a particle with a specific size, physicists give them a limited volume in which they can reside in. This value, known as a Compton Wavelength, is a measure of the smallest volume of space a particular particle can squeeze into. The catch is that particles, unlike matter as we are accustomed to, can occupy the same space and so a Compton Wavelength of space anywhere does not necessitate there being any or just one particle in that allocation of space.
The big question arises: how do we even tell when we’ve found a particle at all? To put it simply, physicists turn to the age-old wisdom of smashing things together and trying to figure out how it all works from the pieces.
Yeah, I know. I felt that obvious sense of a lapse in judgement too. There’s got to be more to it than that, right?
Right. You have to smash things together at really insanely high speeds. I’m talking like 200 mph short of the speed of light ( which is 3.00 x 10^8 m/s or 6.706 x 10^8 mph).
These high-speed collisions are all about achieving high enough energy that the individual particles scatter when hit. Then, by observing the transfer of energy as quantities of momentum and the like which match up to theoretically calculated values for the particles, the existence of said particles can be determined. Not all of the elementary particles have been found and proven yet. For instance, the top quark is one which still evades physicists. However, we do have the technology to find it and thus it is only a matter of time.
The technology used to examine the interactions between particles and to identify the existence of certain particles is through the use of an accelerator and collider. As said before, the particles need to achieve extremely high speeds and so there is a need for a device to get them up to speed. The particle accelerator usually consists of a high energy magnet which literally pulls the particles to increase their speed. The collider part is basically a giant tube. It is often a ring, but can also be a straight tube. This is where the particles actually meet and scatter. What is accelerated at each other is not individual particles themselves, but clusters of protons, neutrons and electrons in the form of radioactive isotopes. The radioactive isotopes are used to due the fact they are already unstable. The isotopes undergo decay to offset either their too large or too small of a mass.
There aren’t many colliders or particle accelerators in the world so the few that do exist are the only centers in the world where experimentation research regarding particle physics is being conducted which is pretty awesome. It is easily a life-long dream for some to have the opportunity to work at one of these facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. (my personal favorite)
Well, that’s it for particle accelerators! Please let me know if there is anything you’d like me to expand on or if you have any questions, comments, or requests! Thanks for reading!
