LHC running at 2 x 3.5 TeV
Dang it! I should have summoned the Demon Chris instead of Demon RavingDave.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)
Art Carlson points out the 'back end collision' resulting in only half the energy. This seems strange. Granted from the CoM reference frame, if the rest particle is at zero KE, and the same mass incoming particle is at 1 unit of KE, then if the stationary target particle is accelerated to 1/2 KE, and the incoming particle retains 1/2 KE, then the reasoning of 1/2 KE exchange applies. But the whole purpose of an atom smasher is to smash things. Upon impact a significant portion of the KE will be converted to pure energy (or escaping sub particle fragements), and particles of interest may then condense from this energy dense volume and fly away, hopefully to interact with a detector directly or through secondary processes. The deposited energy, taken from the KE of the incoming particle and the exiting particles (the two original particles) may be zero to 100% of the incoming particle KE. If it is an elastic collision, zero energy will be deposited, if the particles annihilate, the deposited energy will be 100%, and anything in between is possible.
The vast number of possible interactions makes predictions vague. Elastic collisions certainly predominate at low temperatures. At TeV energies I doubt elastic collisions are very common (assuming the collision is square on and not a shallow glancing interaction). The energy/ particles produced might be almost anything- the 'almost' being the key point as this helps to define the physics (what is not found may be as important as what is found). The useful energy deposited in the collision determines the definition of the accelerator energy capacity. It is a moving target depending on the ... moving particles vector and KE, and likely interaction results. This effects the yields . If the average deposited energy is ~ 1/2 of the incoming particle KE, there will still be up to 1 KE reactions. They will be less common and thus harder to detect the resultant products. There is a lot of statistics involved.
Dan Tibbets
The vast number of possible interactions makes predictions vague. Elastic collisions certainly predominate at low temperatures. At TeV energies I doubt elastic collisions are very common (assuming the collision is square on and not a shallow glancing interaction). The energy/ particles produced might be almost anything- the 'almost' being the key point as this helps to define the physics (what is not found may be as important as what is found). The useful energy deposited in the collision determines the definition of the accelerator energy capacity. It is a moving target depending on the ... moving particles vector and KE, and likely interaction results. This effects the yields . If the average deposited energy is ~ 1/2 of the incoming particle KE, there will still be up to 1 KE reactions. They will be less common and thus harder to detect the resultant products. There is a lot of statistics involved.
Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.