Particle Accelerators and Particle Detection

Abstract

The possibility of investigating the subatomic world is related to the con- struction of increasing larger and more sophisticated accelerators. Here, the energy available in a collision is converted into mass (= new exotic particles) according to the Einstein equation E=mc ². This creation is conditioned by certain rules and obeys precise conservation laws. The problems presented here deal with the (relativistic) relations between particles interacting in fixed target accelerators and in colliders. In the former, a particle is accelerated and the target is at rest in the laboratory system; in the latter, both particles (in general, electrons and positrons, or protons and protons, or protons and antiprotons) collide with equal momenta of opposite sign. Supplement 3.1 describes the electromagnetic radiation generated by charged particles that are accelerated on a curved path or orbit (synchrotron radiation), and its application in many research fields and in industrial applications.