Tabletop Particle Accelerators Put LHC to Shame

Putting massive particle accelerators that span miles to shame, physicists have developed tabletop accelerator that involves 1,000 times greater energy.

According to Business Standard, a US Department of Energy team of scientists at Berkley National Lab created a plasma accelerator which speeds electrons by passing powerful laser through plasma, in a 9 centimeteres tube.

"This result requires exquisite control over the laser and the plasma," says Dr Wim Leemans director of the Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division at Berkeley Lab, who also is the lead author of the paper which published in Physical Review Letters.

The plasma accelerator speeds particles by creating enormous energy gradients by directing intense laser through plasma. Researchers said their one-year old BELLA laser used for the job, is one of the most powerful in the world. BELLA produces quadrillion watts or petawatt of power. The laser provides a channel through the plasma for electrons to accelerate.

"We're forcing this laser beam into a 500 micron hole about 14 meters away. The BELLA laser beam has sufficiently high pointing stability to allow us to use it. Moreover the laser pulse, which fires once a second, is stable to within a fraction of a percent. With a lot of lasers, this never could have happened," said Dr Leemans in a news release.

The energy levels in the tube correspond to 4.25 giga electron volts, much higher than what traditional accelerators like Large Hadron Collider (17 miles in circumference) which uses electrical fields to accelerate particles, can produce. These accelerators have an upper energy limit of 100 mega electron volts. Researchers hope to bump up the energy levels to around 10 giga electron volts with tabletop accelerators in the near future.