Chapter 283 Space Multi-Point Particle Collider

Things on the Kobold Planet are completely on track, but a project in space has just begun.

That is the space multi-point modular particle collider.

After more than 30 years of preparation, humans have completed the blueprint demonstration and construction plan, and all kinds of material resources have been planned. After the start of construction, there will be special and dedicated transportation channels to continuously provide all kinds of necessary materials for the construction of the collider.

Because the particle collider project is about to start, Yue Yuan also came to the School of Physics today. When he came, a group of outstanding physicists had gathered here.

How to build the collider specifically naturally depends on engineers from various industries, but these physicists have mastered various parameters of the particle collider. They know what level the collider can reach after completion and what it is used for research.

Therefore, Yue Yuan came here to get a general understanding of the situation of the collider.

In the plan, the shape of the space multi-point particle collider is a large ring as a whole, with a circumference of about 12,000 kilometers.

What is the concept of 12,000 kilometers? The circumference of the moon is 10,916 kilometers. That is to say, after the completion of the collider planned by humans, it will be a big ring that is a little bigger than the moon.

The reason why it is so big is mainly because it is too small to meet the needs of human scientific research.

As we all know, the so-called particle collider is a device developed on the basis of a large particle collider of a high-energy synchrotron accelerator. Its main function is to accumulate and accelerate two beams of particle streams injected by the previous accelerator, so that they collide with each other to produce a sufficiently high reaction capacity.

The energy to smash an atom, such as a hydrogen atom, only requires 13.6 electron volts of energy. It can be seen that the energy to disintegrate an atom is about 10~100 electron volts. However, to achieve the purpose of scientific research, it is not enough to just smash atoms, but also requires greater energy.

The energy to disintegrate the nucleus is between 106 electron volts and 107 electron volts, and humans have long mastered the ability to exceed this energy.

In the 20th century, the Texas Large Hadron Collider of the Fermi National Accelerator Experiment in the United States, the Tevatron, had the power to produce more than this energy, and its collision energy was 1Tev, that is, one trillion electron volts.

However, the energy of a mere one trillion electron volt is not enough, because this collision energy can only barely produce weak electric particles, which is the threshold for discovering the weak and electrostatic unification theory.

Humans naturally cannot be satisfied with the past, so they must build a larger collider.

As early as the Earth era, humans built a collider with a circumference of 27 kilometers, namely the Large Hadron Collider LHC at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and its collision energy can reach 1.3*10 to the 12th power electron volts, that is, 13 trillion electron volts.

Such a powerful energy has greatly exceeded the conditions required to discover the weak and electrostatic unification theory. This energy level is also the level at which the electromagnetic force couples the charge and the weak force to cause certain types of radioactive decay.

In the primordial universe, gravity, strong force, and weak force had some symmetry breaking, and evolved into the nodes of the four fundamental forces of gravity, strong force, electromagnetic force, and weak force, which were also at this level.

Human colliders have explored this level, but this is far from enough, because according to the theoretical speculation that strong force couples quarks to generate protons and neutrons, electromagnetic force couples charges, and weak force causes certain types of radioactive decay, in order to explore the grand unified theory, at least 10 to the 24th power electron volt energy level must be reached.

This energy level is 10 to the 24th power higher than the collision energy that can be produced by the strongest particle collider in the Earth era. If it is designed according to the plan of the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, then the length of the collider that produces such energy needs to reach one trillion kilometers.

What is the concept of one trillion kilometers? Converted into astronomical units, it is 6684.6 astronomical units, which is 6684.6 times the quiet distance from the sun to the earth. If it follows the previous design plan, it is necessary to build a collider with such a length to explore the grand unified theory.

As for the complete unified theory, it belongs to the category of quantum gravity or the theory of everything, and it would take a collider a thousand light years away to detect it.

At this stage, humans can only fantasize about the quantum gravity and the theory of everything involved in the search for the complete unified theory, but we can try our best to achieve the grand unification. Even if we can't build such a collider, we can build a pre-collider.

The space multi-point particle collider designed by humans today was proposed in such an environment. From this point of view, the collider with a circumference of 10,000 kilometers does not seem so large.

It is also considering the need for future upgrades that this collider adopts a modular design, and each part of the accelerator, collision point, magnet system, and detector are all modularized.

In the design plan, this space multi-point particle collider uses heavy nuclear fusion for power supply, and the cooling device uses a compressor to compress liquid helium to cool the device to a suitable temperature.

Because it is in space, the particle collision point of the collider does not need to be connected to the accelerator. After all, the space environment is more vacuum than the vacuum in the accelerator, and it is completely possible for the particle flow to pass through the vacuum of the universe.

When the particle flow passes through the circular accelerator, it will be accelerated to an energy level of 10 to 100 trillion electron volts. In this way, through multiple accelerations in the ring, the particles can generate strong energy when they collide.

According to the length of this space multi-point particle collider and the strong magnetic field and heavy nuclear fusion energy mastered by humans, if this project is completed, then humans will definitely be able to accelerate particles to 100,000 trillion electron volts, that is, 10 to the 18th power electron volts.

Although it is still N "desperate" levels away from the 10 to the 24th power electron volts in the theory of the grand unified theory, it is at least on the way.

Well, the reason why the ion beam can be accelerated to such a strong energy is not only the credit of the ultra-strong magnetic field technology and the heavy nuclear fusion reactor, but also the credit of the structural design of the space multi-point particle collider itself.

After all, this thing is different from the "two-dimensional plane" on the ground. In space, as long as the collision accuracy is sufficient, humans can make the kinetic energy of accelerated particles offset the kinetic energy generated by particles of the same size in the opposite direction. As long as there are enough collision points, the energy of the collider will increase with the increase in the number of collision points.

With the current level of human mechanical technology, super-strong magnetic field control technology, and energy and other related technical capabilities, the energy level that the collider can reach is only that high. 10 to the 18th power is 5 to 6 energy levels higher than the strongest collider in the Earth era.

That's all for now. Due to the need to arrange instruments to observe the properties of particles, humans cannot make all directions into collision points.