Understanding Proton Collisions in Particle Accelerators

[madhatter106]

In a particle accelerator I.e. LHC a beam of protons are moving past each other and produce an est 1billion collisions per sec. Here's a question about that and the result of such collisions. please bear with me as this may seem a simple question. how do we know exactly that the results recorded are indeed the sub-level make up of protons?

with the increased energy of the proton and the 'head-on' or possible 'off-set' collisions wouldn't that be a creation of 'new' particles not the constituents of a single proton? given the high number of collision per second how is it determined what interacts with what? a proton hits another proton then the resultant creation of a particle hits another proton -> then what? or two particles from adjacent collisions run into each other?

lastly, these are really 'energy' signatures right? the math predicts that with certain interactions we should get a specific result. a 'particle' with certain properties. is the math dealing with particles or fields? a little of both an est.

This may stray a bit here, with this field being explored and the math predictions tested how are we to know which is correct or which is leading? if the experiment is setup based on the math being tested then isn't the math leading the result to a certain extent? but without having the math how would we be able to to test it?

I've read through Penroses last tomb. a fair amount of it does go sailing past me, however I do grasp enough of it to wonder if we are doing the proper research in quantum physics. discrete units and clean slices of time are easier to mathematically model but the reality of the world is a constantly moving field, I haven't run into math that deals with that level, does it exist? have I just not gotten far enough?

 

[Bob S]

The LHC uses beam bunches ~7 cm long with ~ 1 x 10¹¹ protons per bunch. The counter-rotating bunches are nominally about 150 nanoseconds apart. There is very roughly < 1 "head-on" collision with detectable secondaries per crossing (bunch-bunch collision, 10¹¹ on 10¹¹). With a beam energy of 3.5 TeV, the proton rest mass represents less than 0.1% of the total collision energy. So most of the secondary particles detected per collision are created from kinetic energy ("out of the vacuum"), not from proton mass. Interesting collisions have ~hundreds of secondary particles.

Bob S