This project is the culmination of more than 20 years of concerted international effort, with funding and research from nations in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Over 300 universities and laboratories have taken part. It originated as a series of three separate collider proposals – the Next Linear Collider (NLC), the Global Linear Collider (GLC) and the Teraelectronvolt Energy Superconducting Linear Accelerator (TESLA), all of which were combined into the International Linear Collider (ILC).
Located in Europe, the ILC is the successor to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), building upon the work already done by that machine. Although its collisions are less powerful, it offers far more precise measurements. It also gives off less electromagnetic radiation.
The ILC consists of two opposite-facing linear accelerators, together stretching 31 kilometers (19.3 miles), that hurl particles and anti-particles towards each other at close to the speed of light. Along with the linear accelerators, the facility contains two dampening rings, with a circumference of 6.7 kilometers (4.2 miles). Current energy levels of the collisions are 500 billion-electron-volts (GeV), but will soon be upgraded to a trillion-electron-volts (TeV).
The extreme precision and exact recordings offered by the ILC help to reveal some of the deepest mysteries of the universe. Some of the experiments are concerned with extra-dimensional physics and supersymmetric particles, while others provide research into dark matter.
No comments:
Post a Comment