Keeping RHIC's Beam Tight and the Orbit Right

September 21, 2011

Physicist Michiko Minty explains how bunches of particles traveling in opposite directions in each of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider’s (RHIC) two superconducting rings are guided, focused, and accelerated to nearly the speed of light and then made to collide. She describes how to ensure the highest possible collision rates by establishing head-on collisions between the two-foot-long bunches which, at the interaction points, are a width comparable to a human hair. Read More