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LEP was annihilating electrons with positrons; LHC does not, as it only accelerates protons. FCC will have the option to do both: the plan includes two separate
by magv 6y ago
LEP was annihilating electrons with positrons; LHC does not, as it only accelerates protons. FCC will have the option to do both: the plan includes two separate pipes in the same tunnel, one for protons, one for electrons.
This however does not increase the collision energy significantly: a single electron-positron pair has the (rest) energy of ~1MeV -- this is what is released during the annihilation, but the energies we want to go to at the next collider go up to 10TeV, so 10^7 times larger.
- magicalhippo 6y agoLHC smashes protons together, and for comparison the rest mass (energy) of a proton[1] is just shy of 1GeV. So that's still 4 orders of magnitude below the collision energy of the LHC. [1]: http://pdglive.lbl.gov/DataBlock.action?node=S016M&home=BXXX005 http://pdglive.lbl.gov/DataBlock.action?node=S016M&home=BXXX...