What pushes particles in colliders?

[cameron marical]

I read somewhere that It was klystrons, but It lacked a description on the page and I could not find anything online.

 

If a Klystron{Klystrons?} do indeed acclerate particles in things like the LHC, the how exactly do they work?

 

If not, what does the job then?

 

Thank you.

[Moontanman]

The magnetic field does this, negative charges are pushed/pulled in one direction and positive in the other.

[Martin]

One of the designers of the stanford linear accelerator used to say that the klystrons made waves and the particle (an electron) rode the wave "like a surfer".

 

You don't have to say that it is magnetic waves, you can emphasize the electric component of the wave.

 

The electron is like on a surf board, and it has a big concentration of negative charge behind it pushing and a trough or low point of negative charge ahead of it (or think of it as positive charge pulling). So naturally it accelerates.

 

So the accelerator is several kilometers long and there is this long long line of large klystron tubes all the way along the tunnel. They are big tubes like as big as a man, they are cylinders full of vacuum. They make the wave of positive negative electric force, that the "surfer" electrons ride on.

 

You asked how a klystron works. The klystron tube is used in television broadcast and radar and all places where you need a lot of microwave power. Think of it as an amplifier. It works by "bunching". You put energy into an electron beam by a highvoltage electron gun and at the start or base of the beam you apply a weak little fluctuation which alternately slows down some and speeds up others. Then like cars on the freeway, if some go a little faster and the others go a little slower after they have gone some distance along their road they will be bunched. Then there is a brief concentration of negative charge, as the bunch passes by. This gives an alternation of high and low charge density.

 

The driving beam of each klystron is not the same as the science beam that is going down the long tunnel. The driving beam is just inside each klystron tube and it is only a means of making wave power---of amplifying an originally weak microwave signal.

 

Cam, since you live in Madera, California, you probably drive sometimes on the SF Peninsula and you may know highway 280.

The 3-mile stanford accelerator called SLAC crosses 280 at around Sand Hill road exit, a Palo Alto exit. The 280 freeway is very beautiful in the hills and along reservoir lakes. Often fog comes in from the ocean over the hills. As you approach Sand Hill road exit you can see the long straight SLAC shed that goes sort of east-west crossing under the freeway at right angles. You can go off there to main office and arrange to take the tour. They will show you the klystrons and explain. Take your girlfriend, if you have. It is beautiful and impressive at the research facility. After all, it was built for the honor of the human mind.

Edited May 17, 2009 by Martin