There are lots of small hadron colliders. Hadrons are just composite particles made up of quarks and held together by the strong force. This includes "exotic" particles like mesons and high energy baryons, but it also includes the "mundane" baryons such as protons and neutrons. So technically any proton accelerator is a hadron collider. Which includes the first cyclotron, a proton accelerator built in 1932 that was only 27 inches across, a very "small hadron collider" indeed.
> Colliding electron and positron beams could have implications in fundamental physics. For example, they could create a higher rate of Higgs bosons than the LHC can, allowing physicists to better study its properties.
Didn't the Large Electron-Positron Collider fail to detect evidence of the Higgs Boson?
It got close, but it was limited by its design/diameter, such are the woes of synchroton radiation and accelerating the lighter charged particles. As far as I know they pushed its limits all they could (burning it) before shutting it down to replace it with the LHC. Too bad really, as the nicest accelerator for studying the properties of a Higgs is an e+e- collider and at some point at least one will/should be built. The LHC was built because something new had to show up at around 1TeV tops, it was either a Higgs boson or new physics (not all the energy of the pp collision is available for say a qq collision, because quarks are in a bound state, 14 TeV for pp at the LHC means approx 2 TeV for Higgs or new stuff).
> Didn't the Large Electron-Positron Collider fail to detect evidence of the Higgs Boson?
It didn't produce a negative result. In fact, they were seeing some small hints of something around 114 GeV right as they shut down for the LHC construction.
"On 4 July 2012, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider announced they had each observed a new particle in the mass region around 126 GeV. This particle is consistent with the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model."
No, it succeeded in confirming the existence of the Higgs boson. In fact, that's largely the reason Higgs and Englert were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013.
Is this a variant of plasma wakefield accelerator, or something else?
If so, staging is an issue from what I understand. Even at 100GeV/m, you'll need many stages to reach interesting TeV territory, so this is a crucial aspect if it wants to beat the LHC.
I couldn't find it in the article (perhaps I overlooked it) -- but what do they mean by 'mini'? Especially considering the LHC has a circumference of 16 miles...
They mention 100GeV/m gradients in the paper. If you could get that for 150m you'd have 15 TeV, comparable in energy to LHC (~14 TeV).
As I understand it, you can't just build a pipe and get the full gradient for X meters. Rather you build a (relatively) small device which has the 100GeV/m gradient, and then you'd glue many such devices back-to-back. So you get some overhead from the interconnects etc. Still, with 10x overhead it's "only" one mile.
The other point is that not all applications need TeV scale. For such applications maybe just a few stages would be sufficient. In which case it might be room-size or less.
I was about to laugh at this commenter for watching too much Star Trek but decided to read a little. Turns out Robert Forward did some work on this and it's not so bad.
Computer simulations (without actual experiments) of improved advanced techniques to produce a "shower" of electrons and positrons by hitting a metal target with a laser, which are then accelerated and confined with a second laser driving plasma waves.
The figures in the article, with lasers reflected by mirrors and particle beams going through the mirrors, suggest a very small but decently powerful single stage accelerator; using this technique as a building block for a large accelerrator isn't discussed.
There seems to be a push lately in UK media of running newstories about "making Britain Great again", just last week we had a story about a new spaceport, this week there is stories without source about EU caving in to all brexiteer demands and so on
All while the country is teetering on edge and could drag down its neighbours into another recession (selfmade this time), the NHS and local authorities remain in crisis, pound is weakening and inflation keeps going up.
It sucks being stuck sort of speak between 2 of your good neighbours undergoing a mental breakdown and self harming
This is way off topic and breaks the HN guidelines against taking threads into extraneous flamewars. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here.
Edit: since you have been using HN primarily for political battle, we've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
This isn't the "UK media", this is a university trying to sell itself as doing some cool research / coming up with ideas (which, incidentally, is their job).
If you really want to rant about the media spinning brexit lies then go ahead - you'll find plenty of willing listeners, but at least try and do it on a news story that actually fits your argument?
I would say there is push lately to picture UK situation in very black colors and I believe many of those claims are not really justified.
Firstly, inflation is not going up, at least I couldn't find any evidence of that.
Secondly, looking at the UK trade partners (for instance here http://www.worldstopexports.com/united-kingdoms-top-import-p...) I see that UK has trade deficit will all EU countries, given the fact that UK has well develop economy they can in fact gain on leaving UK and relaying on bilateral deals (and I guess those who are bashing UK most will be first in the queue to start trading with them - Germany approach to Nord Stream that can be potentially dangerous for EU energy safety shows that when it comes to money, EU "unity" is thrown away quickly).
Third, weakening pound is actually good for UK, the goods they produce are cheaper, so event if imported goods are more expensive at some point this will come to equilibrium.
Fourth, UK has still hidden gems like tax havens here and there, including the one at the very center of London - quite convenient for all the rich people who, accidentally, have also a lot of political power and surely they would not like UK to be hurt too much.
The only danger I see is that Scotland might try to gain independence and walk away with the oil taken from the North See, this would shrink UK domestic market and could indeed do some harm.
I’ve had the same impression as of late. Alas, in a very English fashion, please be advised we don’t talk about those things in public, as you should know already. Same for racism, bigotry, xenophobia and the rest of virtues our great country is well known for.
[+] [-] jjgreen|7 years ago|reply
Robert E. A. Harvey, Comment on The Register, 28th December 2011
Prescient!
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yborg|7 years ago|reply
Dr. Egon Spengler: I blame myself.
Dr. Peter Venkman: So do I.
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Well, no sense in worrying about it now.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.
[+] [-] hyperion2010|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saagarjha|7 years ago|reply
Didn't the Large Electron-Positron Collider fail to detect evidence of the Higgs Boson?
[+] [-] mnl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] magicalhippo|7 years ago|reply
It didn't produce a negative result. In fact, they were seeing some small hints of something around 114 GeV right as they shut down for the LHC construction.
[+] [-] based2|7 years ago|reply
"On 4 July 2012, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider announced they had each observed a new particle in the mass region around 126 GeV. This particle is consistent with the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model."
https://timeline.web.cern.ch/timelines/The-Large-Hadron-Coll...
https://home.cern/about/accelerators/large-electron-positron...
"LEP – the largest electron-positron accelerator ever built – was dismantled in 2000. Its 27-kilometre tunnel now hosts the LHC"
==
http://medicinemag.net/science/2091/a-simple-antimatter-acce...
[+] [-] vichu|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] magicalhippo|7 years ago|reply
If so, staging is an issue from what I understand. Even at 100GeV/m, you'll need many stages to reach interesting TeV territory, so this is a crucial aspect if it wants to beat the LHC.
Some relevant discussion on PhysicsForums: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/two-stage-electron-wak...
[+] [-] tgragnato|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danesparza|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] magicalhippo|7 years ago|reply
As I understand it, you can't just build a pipe and get the full gradient for X meters. Rather you build a (relatively) small device which has the 100GeV/m gradient, and then you'd glue many such devices back-to-back. So you get some overhead from the interconnects etc. Still, with 10x overhead it's "only" one mile.
The other point is that not all applications need TeV scale. For such applications maybe just a few stages would be sufficient. In which case it might be room-size or less.
[+] [-] SiempreViernes|7 years ago|reply
[1]: https://journals.aps.org/prab/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevAccelB...
[+] [-] jessriedel|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrfusion|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imglorp|7 years ago|reply
https://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2281
[+] [-] swebs|7 years ago|reply
>It is possible this article may have been removed after being published.
I can't seem to find an archive either.
[+] [-] magicalhippo|7 years ago|reply
PDF is surprisingly freely available.
[+] [-] WorkLifeBalance|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patagonia|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HelloNurse|7 years ago|reply
The figures in the article, with lasers reflected by mirrors and particle beams going through the mirrors, suggest a very small but decently powerful single stage accelerator; using this technique as a building block for a large accelerrator isn't discussed.
[+] [-] fenk85|7 years ago|reply
All while the country is teetering on edge and could drag down its neighbours into another recession (selfmade this time), the NHS and local authorities remain in crisis, pound is weakening and inflation keeps going up.
It sucks being stuck sort of speak between 2 of your good neighbours undergoing a mental breakdown and self harming
[+] [-] dang|7 years ago|reply
Edit: since you have been using HN primarily for political battle, we've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
[+] [-] Ntrails|7 years ago|reply
If you really want to rant about the media spinning brexit lies then go ahead - you'll find plenty of willing listeners, but at least try and do it on a news story that actually fits your argument?
[+] [-] windows_tips|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] piokoch|7 years ago|reply
Firstly, inflation is not going up, at least I couldn't find any evidence of that.
Secondly, looking at the UK trade partners (for instance here http://www.worldstopexports.com/united-kingdoms-top-import-p...) I see that UK has trade deficit will all EU countries, given the fact that UK has well develop economy they can in fact gain on leaving UK and relaying on bilateral deals (and I guess those who are bashing UK most will be first in the queue to start trading with them - Germany approach to Nord Stream that can be potentially dangerous for EU energy safety shows that when it comes to money, EU "unity" is thrown away quickly).
Third, weakening pound is actually good for UK, the goods they produce are cheaper, so event if imported goods are more expensive at some point this will come to equilibrium.
Fourth, UK has still hidden gems like tax havens here and there, including the one at the very center of London - quite convenient for all the rich people who, accidentally, have also a lot of political power and surely they would not like UK to be hurt too much.
The only danger I see is that Scotland might try to gain independence and walk away with the oil taken from the North See, this would shrink UK domestic market and could indeed do some harm.
[+] [-] kabouseng|7 years ago|reply
Sorry your comment just really made me think about the book 1984.
[+] [-] mbroncano|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JulianMorrison|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grpaceloidsop|7 years ago|reply