Voyage of the Stars

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 thirty years of preparation, humans have completed the blueprint demonstration and construction plan, and various material resources have also been planned. After construction starts, there will be special and specialized transportation channels to continuously provide various types of materials for the construction of the collider. Required things.

Because the particle collider project was about to be built, Yue Yuan also came to the School of Physics today. When he arrived, a group of outstanding physicists had already gathered here.

The specific method of building a collider naturally depends on engineers from various industries. However, these physicists have mastery of various parameters of the particle collider. What level the collider can reach after it is completed, what research it will be used for, etc., they all know.

Therefore, Yue Yuan came here to learn about the situation of the collider.

In the planning, the overall shape of the space multi-point particle collider is a large ring, with a circumference of approximately 12,000 kilometers.

What is the concept of 12,000 kilometers? The circumference of the moon is 10,916 kilometers. In other words, after the collider built by humans this time is completed, it will be a large ring slightly larger than the moon.

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

As we all know, the so-called particle collider is a device developed on the basis of a large particle collider based on a high-energy synchrotron. Its main function is to accumulate and accelerate two particle streams injected successively from the pre-stage accelerator to make them oppose each other. collision to produce sufficiently high responsiveness.

The energy required to break an atom, um, a hydrogen atom, only requires 13.6 electron volts. It can be seen that the energy required to disintegrate an atom is probably in the range of 10 to 100 electron volts. However, to achieve the purpose of scientific research, it is not enough to smash atoms with light, and more energy is needed.

The energy that causes the disintegration of an atomic nucleus is between 106 electron volts and 107 electron volts. Human beings have already mastered the ability to exceed this energy.

The Tevatron, the Texas Large Hadron Collider at the Fermi National Accelerator Experiment in the United States in the 20th century, has the power to produce more than this energy. Its collision energy is 1 Tev, which is one trillion electron volts.

However, a mere one trillion electron volts of energy is not enough, because this collision energy is enough to knock out electroweak particles, which is the threshold for discovering the unified theory of electroweakness.

Naturally, humans cannot be satisfied with the past tense, so they must build a larger collider.

As early as the age of the earth, humans have built a collider with a circumference of 27 kilometers, namely the Large Hadron Collider LHC at the European Nuclear Center. The energy of its collision can reach 1.3*1012 electron volts. , which is 13 trillion electron volts.

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

In the era of the original universe, some symmetry breaking occurred in gravity, strong force, and weak force, and it evolved into the node of the four basic forces of gravity, strong force, electromagnetic force, and weak force. It is also at this level.

Human colliders have already explored this level, but this is far from enough, because based on theoretical speculations that strong coupling of quarks generates protons and neutrons, electromagnetic force couples charges, and the weak force causes certain types of radioactive decay, we want to explore A grand unified theory must have an energy level of at least 10 to the power of 24 electron volts.

This energy level is 10 to the 24th power times higher than the collision energy produced by the most powerful particle collider in the Earth era. If it is designed according to the plan of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, then building a collider that can produce such energy Collider, its length needs to be one trillion kilometers.

What is the concept of one trillion kilometers? When converted into astronomical units, it is 6684.6 astronomical units, which is 6684.6 times the calm distance from the sun to the earth. If we follow the previous design plan, we will have to build a collider with such a length to be able to explore Grand unified theory.

As for a completely unified theory, it falls under the category of quantum gravity or the theory of everything, and it would take a thousand light-year collider to be built to detect it.

At this stage, humans can only dream about quantum gravity and the theory of everything involved in the search for a completely unified theory. However, we can try hard to achieve a unified theory. Even if we cannot build such a collider, we can still build one. The front collider comes out.

The space multi-point particle collider designed by humans today was proposed in such an environment. Looking at it this way, a collider with a circumference of 10,000 kilometers does not seem so big.

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

In the design plan, this space multi-point particle collider is powered by heavy nuclear fusion, 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 ring-shaped accelerator, it will be accelerated to an energy level of 10 to 100 trillion electron volts. This multiple accelerations through the ring can cause the particles to generate strong energy when they collide.

According to the comprehensive calculation of the length of this multi-point particle collider in space and the strong magnetic field and heavy nuclear fusion energy controlled by mankind, if this project is completed, then mankind will definitely be able to accelerate particles to an energy of 100000 trillion electron volts, which is 10 18 electron volts.

Although it is still N levels of "desperation" compared to the 10 to the 24th power of electron volts that peek into the grand unified theory in theory, it is at least on the way.

Well, the reason why the ion beam can be accelerated to such a powerful energy is actually not only due to the ultra-strong magnetic field technology and heavy nuclear fusion reactor, but also due to 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 offset the kinetic energy of accelerated particles with the kinetic energy of particles of the same size in the opposite direction. As long as there are enough collision points, then The energy of the collider will increase with the number of collision points.

With the current level of human mechanical technology, ultra-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 most powerful collider in the Earth era.

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