This is a contributed topic on high energy physics.
0.1 High energy physics and Particle accelerators
Because high energies are usually obtained by researchers in large particle accelerators this
important, expensive and intensive branch of physics is often called particle physics. Some high
energy γ particles whose origin is in outer space are however also detected at high altitudes on
Earth or by detectors mounted on satellites.
0.2 The Standard Model (SUSY)
The current model employed by branches of physics other than Gravitation is summarized by ‘The
Standard Model’ which can be described as the current classification of particles based only on
strong, electromagnetic and electroweak interactions, mediated by field particles called gauge
bosons.
0.3 Gauge bosons
The gauge bosons corresponding to the above three types of interactions are:
0.4 Major facilities for high energy physics
0.4.1 In the USA:
- Brookhaven National Laboratory, located on Long Island; this is a Relativistic Heavy
Ion Collider that collides heavy ions such as gold ions with polarized protons.
- The “Tevatron” at Fermilab, located near Chicago, USA; this is a proton–antiproton
collider, at present the second highest energy particle collider in the world.
- SLAC, located near Berkeley and Palo Alto, USA, an electron–positron collider and
storage ring.
0.4.2 In the European Union:
- CERN, located on the French-Swiss border near Geneva, currently operating the
world’s higherst energy particle acccelerator–the large hadron collider (LHC)
- SPS at CERN–the “Super Proton Synchrotron”-precursor of LHC
- DESY, located in Hamburg, Germany, with the high energy HERA electron (or
positron)– proton collider.
- ISIS– the brightest neutron spallation source at the Harwell reactor, near Oxford, in
U.K.
0.4.3 In Japan:
KEK, located in Tsukuba, Japan, is the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization of
Japan.
0.4.4 In Russia:
Budker Institute of nuclear physics at Novosibirsk.
