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particle accelerator
noun
- a machine for accelerating charged elementary particles to very high energies, used for research in nuclear physics See also linear accelerator cyclotron betatron synchrotron synchrocyclotron
particle accelerator
- Any of several machines, such as the cyclotron and linear accelerator, that increase the speed and energy of protons, electrons, or other atomic particles, and direct them at atomic nuclei or other particles to cause high-energy collisions. Such collisions produce other particles, whose paths are tracked and analyzed. Particle accelerators are used to study the nature of the atomic nucleus, subatomic particles, and the forces relating them, and to create radioactive isotopes.
particle accelerator
- A machine (sometimes called an “atom smasher”), often very large, that brings elementary particles (usually either protons or electrons ) to a very high speed and then allows them to collide with a target. From the resulting behavior of the particles and the target, scientists deduce the structure of the particles.
Notes
A Closer Look
Example Sentences
The particle accelerator, built at a cost of $10bn, was the most powerful yet.
The fraction of radiocarbon in pure carbon is measured using a particle accelerator.
Superconductors are materials that can conduct electricity without electrical resistance -- making them the ideal base material for electronic components in MRI machines, magnetic levitation trains and even particle accelerators.
Department of Energy’s Superconducting Super Collider, an underground particle accelerator, citing concerns about rising costs and fiscal mismanagement.
Experiments in particle accelerators around the world suddenly find that the last several decades’ worth of research is wrong.
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