Particle Accelerators

Edwin J. Ramos Marrero

            Particle Accelerators are machines that uses electromagnetic fields to expulse charged particles to high speeds and to contain them in well defined beams. For the most basic questions in dynamics and structure of matter, space, and time, physicists seek the simplest kinds of interactions at the highest possible energies. These typically involve particle energies of many GeV  and the interactions of the simplest kinds of particles. Particle accelerators have many applications in common use and in experimental and theoretical physics research and also in many technical and industrial fields unrelated to fundamental research. It has been estimated that there are approximately 26,000 accelerators worldwide. Of these, only about 260 are the experimental machines with energies above one GeV, about 11,440 are for radiotherapy, about 10,660 for ion implantation, about 2,340 for industrial processing and research, and about 1,040 for biomedical and other low-energy research.
            There are two basic types of particle accelerators, electrostatic and oscillating field accelerators. Electrostatic accelerators produce a single static high voltage to accelerate charged particles. Although electrostatic accelerators accelerate particles in a straight line, the name linear accelerator is more often used with accelerators that produce oscillating electric fields instead of static ones, this is why many accelerators are not named linear accelerators, instead electrostatic accelerators.
            Oscillating field particle accelerators produce an oscillating high voltage produced by an electrical discharge in order to accelerate particles to higher energies based on techniques involving more than one lower, but oscillating, high voltage sources. The electrodes can either be arranged to accelerate particles in a line or in a circle, depending if the particles are exposed to a magnetic field while they are accelerated, causing their path to arc.
            Many experimental particle accelerators, especially the Large Hadron Collider, have caused worries among some physicists about the risk involved by such machines not only to the scientists involved but to the whole Earth. Some mathematical theories show the possibility that a high-power particle accelerator could cause the formation of small black holes. Most physicists, however, agree that these small black holes, if produced, would be a small threat as they would either dissipate into Hawking radiation or grow too slowly to be any kind of reasonable danger. Many of today's discoveries, like the electron for example, where found through the use of a cathode ray tube, one kind of particle accelerator. Also tomorrow's possible discoveries like the Higgs&Boson particle, that makes energy acquire mass and vice-versa, would probably be thanks to this machines. If discovered, it could provide the key to a much greater understanding of the whole physical world as we know it.
            A particle accelerator may seem to some to be a primitive tool, by the fact that it's a device used since the early 20th century. Despite this fact, the scientific knowledge gained from such devices, is huge and will likely continue to be, as particle accelerators become more and more powerful.