Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider smashes record for polarized proton luminosity
Tuesday, April 14, 2015 - 17:00
in Physics & Chemistry
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a powerful particle accelerator for nuclear physics research at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, just shattered its own record for producing polarized proton collisions at 200-giga-electron-volt (GeV) collision energy. In the experimental run currently underway at this two-ringed, 2.4-mile-circumference particle collider, accelerator physicists are now delivering 1200 billion of these subatomic smashups per week-more than double the number routinely achieved in 2012, the last run dedicated to polarized proton experiments at this collision energy.