Particle Accelerators and The Cruciality of Electromagnets
By: bella Thornton
Particle accelerators play an important innovative role in science and society. According to the United States Department of Energy, particle accelerators “are essential tools of discovery for particle and nuclear physics, and medically speaking, “tens of millions receive accelerator based diagnosis” and play an important role in medical therapy. Accelerators also greatly contribute to industry growth and security. Without the electromagnets involved in the process of particle acceleration, however, none of this would be possible. 
Particle accelerators, according to the Department of Energy, “use electric fields to speed up and increase the energy of a beam of particles, which are steered and focused by magnetic fields.” A particle accelerator, according to MIT, “electric fields accelerate subatomic particles, and in circular machines, magnetic fields guide them around courses into controlled head-on collisions.” An electromagnet itself is a coil surrounding soft metal core made into magnets. According to the Department of Energy, “Electromagnets steer and focus the beam of particles while it travels through a vacuum tube.” Here, Cern provides examples of the function magnets have inside of a particle accelerator: “Dipole magnets, for example, bend the path of a beam of particles that would otherwise travel in a straight line. The more energy a particle has, the greater the magnetic field needed to bend its path. Quadrupole magnets act likes lenses to focus a beam, gathering the particles closer together.”
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