Collider
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A collider is a type of a particle accelerator with two opposite beams of the particles.
In particle physics one gains knowledge about elementary particles by accelerating particles to very high kinetic energy and letting them impact on other particles. For sufficiently high energy, a reaction happens that transforms the particles into other particles. Detecting these products gives insight into the physics involved.
To do such experiments there are obviously two possible setups:
- Fixed target setup: A beam of particles (the projectiles) is accelerated with a particle accelerator, and as collision partner, one puts a stationary target into the path of the beam.
- Collider: Two beams of particles are accelerated and the beams are directed against each other, so that the particles collide while flying into opposite directions.
Colliders may either be ring accelerators or linear accelerators.
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