There are 2 types of particle accelerators:
• 💡 “precision measurements machines” that use “leptons” (electrons),colliding in a “clean” way
• 💥 “discovery machines” that smash “hadrons” (composite particles like protons): chaotic but powerful!
In lepton colliders,the smashing particles are point-like particles(because leptons have no spatial dimension)with very defined energy
Instead, hadron collider, such as the LHC at @CERN, smash“hadrons”:composite particles whose components have different direction/energy
The old “LEP” is an example of the “precision measurements machines”
The LEP at @CERN accelerated and collide electrons with its antimatter partner: the anti-electron, or “positron”
When colliding, they “annihilate”: their sum energy is converted into a new particle
When matter and antimatter annihilate, they create new particles in a super-clean way
No other particles than the direct products of the annihilation are created
No noisy “background”
So,it’s easy for physicists to use them to discover something or for precise measures
That would make the use of electrons in particle colliders the most interesting and obvious choice, but…
But electrons are very hard to accelerate at high energies in collider rings without wasting energy…
On the other hand, heavy, composite “hadrons” like protons can be “easily” accelerated to the highest energy possible
So, collider like the LHC are the most powerful machines 💥
That gives them the label of “discovery machines”! 🏆
…even if with very noisy background!
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P.S.
Questions? Just ask in the comments!👇
I love questions! 🤗
@tobychev that’s under study!! 👍😃 the problem with muons is that they’re not stable, they decay, and their life is very short.
So, we must invent methods to accelerate them enough and use them in a short time.
We cannot accelerate them during hours, as with protons.
But a muon collider would be awesome indeed. And it’s only matter of time: we have to invent the right technology, but we’ll have a muon collider in a not so far future for sure! 👍