Collision time at Fermilab

18 April 2001

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These skyscrapers on a computerised landscape are in fact a record of collisions at the world's highest energy particle accelerator - the Tevatron at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. This display is from the experiment called CDF (Collider Detector at Fermilab) which records the aftermath of head-on collisions between protons and antiprotons at the Tevatron. The detector is like a huge, layered cylinder surrounding the beam pipe where the protons and antiprotons collide. It shows the energy deposited in the entire detector. In this display the cylinder has in a sense been "unrolled" to show where particles created in the annihilation of a proton with an antiproton at the centre have deposited their energy. The pink towers show electromagnetic energy, deposited by electrons, positrons and photons. The blue towers show energy deposited by particles such as protons and pions, which are built from quarks and are known collectively as hadrons. The heights of the towers are proportional to the amount of energy deposited. A more familiar type of display of this event can be seen here.

Look here for live events from CDF when the detector is running.

Credit: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory / CDF

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