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Colliding beam experiment


In a colliding-beam experiment two beams of high-energy particles are made to cross each other.

The advantage of this arrangement is that both beams have significant kinetic energy, so a collision between them is more likely to produce a higher mass particle than would a fixed-target collision (with the one beam) at the same energy. Since we are dealing with particles with a lot of momentum, these particles have short wavelengths and make excellent probes.