GPU-accelerated collision events, detector displays, and resonance hunting
Particle colliders are the world's most powerful microscopes. By smashing particles together at nearly the speed of light, we convert kinetic energy into new particles (E = mc²). The Large Hadron Collider at CERN collides protons at 13 TeV — recreating conditions a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.
Watch two particle beams collide and produce a shower of new particles. Higher collision energy produces more and heavier particles. Each event is unique.
Modern detectors like ATLAS and CMS wrap concentric layers around the collision point. Each layer identifies different particle types: the tracker measures charged particle paths, the ECAL catches electrons and photons, the HCAL catches hadrons, and the muon chambers catch muons. Neutrinos escape undetected as "missing energy."
The cross section σ(E) tells us how likely a reaction is at a given energy. Peaks in the cross section correspond to resonances — the creation of real particles like the J/ψ, Υ, and Z boson. Each peak follows the Breit-Wigner distribution.
The Higgs boson was discovered in 2012 by looking for a tiny bump in the invariant mass distribution of photon pairs (H → γγ). Watch events accumulate and see if you can spot the signal emerging from the background.