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Article: By the weight of the silvery moon. (moon's gravitational pull accounts for energy fluctuations of particle beams in Large Electron Positron collider) (Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- January 9, 1993
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Scientists at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, have unmasked an unlikely culprit - the moon - in accounting for small, but significant fluctuations in the energy of particle beams circulating in the Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider. These tiny energy variations became apparent about two years ago as physicists steadily increased the precision of measurements of the mass of a subatomic particle known as the [Z.sup.0].
At the LEP collider, beams of electrons and positrons travel around an underground ring with a circumference of 26.7 kilometers. A radio frequency system keeps the particles circulating at a constant ...