A list of particle accelerators used for particle physics experiments. Some early particle accelerators that more properly did nuclear physics, but existed prior to the separation of particle physics from that field, are also included. Although a modern accelerator complex usually has several stages of accelerators, only accelerators whose output has been used directly for experiments are listed.

Early accelerators

These all used single beams with fixed targets. They tended to have very briefly-run, inexpensive, and unnamed experiments.

Cyclotrons

Accelerator	Location	Years of operation	Shape	Accelerated Particle	Kinetic Energy	Notes and discoveries made
9-inch cyclotron	UC Berkeley	1931	Circular	H2+	1.0 MeV	Proof of concept
11-inch cyclotron	UC Berkeley	1932	Circular	Proton	1.2 MeV
27-inch cyclotron	UC Berkeley	1932-1936	Circular	Deuteron	4.8 MeV	Investigated deuteron-nucleus interactions
37-inch cyclotron	UC Berkeley	1937-1938	Circular	Deuteron	8 MeV	Discovered many isotopes
60-inch cyclotron	UC Berkeley	1939-1941	Circular	Deuteron	16 MeV	Discovered many isotopes
184-inch cyclotron	Berkeley Rad Lab[1]	1942-	Circular	Various	>100 MeV	Research on uranium isotope separation
Calutrons	Oak Ridge National Laboratory	1943-	"Horseshoe"	Uranium nuclei		Used to separate isotopes for the Manhattan project

^[1] First accelerator built at the current Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory site, then known as the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory ("Rad Lab" for short)

Other early accelerator types

Accelerator	Location	Years of operation	Shape and size	Accelerated particle	Kinetic Energy	Notes and discoveries made
Cockcroft and Walton's electrostatic accelerator	Cavendish Laboratory	1932	See Cockroft- Walton generator	Proton	0.7 MeV	First to artificially split the nucleus (Lithium)

Synchrotrons

Accelerator	Location	Years of operation	Shape and size	Accelerated particle	Kinetic Energy	Notes and discoveries made
Cosmotron	Brookhaven National Laboratory	1953-1968	Circular ring (72 meters around)	Proton	3.3 GeV	Discovery of V particles, first artificial production of some mesons.
Birmingham Synchrotron	University of Birmingham	1939-?		Proton	1 GeV
Bevatron	Berkeley Rad Lab ie LBNL	1954-~1970	"Race track"	Proton	6.2 GeV	strange particle experiments, Antiproton and antineutron discovered, resonances discovered
Bevalac, combination of SuperHILAC linear accelerator, a diverting tube, then the Bevatron	Berkeley Rad Lab ie LBNL	~1970-1993	linear accelerator followed by "Race track"	any and all sufficiently-stable nuclei could be accelerated		observation of compressed nuclear matter. Depositing ions in tumors in cancer research.
Saturne	Saclay, France				3 GeV
Synchrophasotron	Dubna, Russia	December 1949-present			10 GeV
Zero Gradient Synchrotron	Argonne National Laboratory				12.5 GeV
Proton Synchrotron	CERN	1959-present	Circular ring (600 meters around)	Proton	28 GeV	Used to feed ISR, SPS, LHC
Alternating Gradient Synchrotron	Brookhaven National Laboratory	1960-		Proton	33 GeV	J/Ψ, muon neutrino, CP violation in kaons

Fixed-target accelerators

More modern accelerators that were also run in fixed target mode; often, they will also have been run as colliders, or accelerated particles for use in subsequently-built colliders.

Accelerator	Location	Years of operation	Shape and size	Accelerated particle	Kinetic Energy	Experiments	Notes
SLAC Linac	Stanford Linear Accelerator center	1966-present	3 km linear accelerator	Electron/ Positron	50 GeV		Repeatedly upgraded, used to feed PEP, SPEAR, SLC, and PEP-II
Fermilab Booster	Fermilab	1970-present	Circular Synchrotron	Protons	8 GeV	MiniBooNE
Fermilab Main Injector	Fermilab	1995-present	Circular Synchrotron	Protons and antiprotons	150 GeV	MINOS
Fermilab Main Ring	Fermilab	1970-1995	Circular Synchrotron	Protons and antiprotons	400 GeV (until 1979), 150 GeV thereafter
Super Proton Synchrotron	CERN	1980-present	Circular Synchrotron	Protons and ions	480 GeV	OPERA and ICARUS at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso
Bates Linear Accelerator	Middleton, MA	1967-2005	500 MeV recirculating linac and storage ring	polarized electrons	1 GeV
CEBAF	Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Newport News, VA	1984-present	5.75 GeV recirculating linac (upgrading to 12 GeV)	polarized electrons
ISIS neutron source	Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, Oxon	1984-present	H- Linac followed by proton RCS	Protons	800 MeV		Highest power operational pulsed proton beam in the world
MAMI	Mainz, Germany		855 MeV accelerator	polarized electrons
Tevatron	Fermilab	1978-present	Superconducting Circular Synchrotron	Protons	980 GeV
Spallation Neutron Source	Oak Ridge National Laboratory	2006 - Present	Linear (335 m) and Circular (248 m)	Protons	800 MeV - 1 GeV

Colliders

Electron-positron colliders

Accelerator	Location	Years of operation	Shape and size	Electron energy	Positron energy	Experiments	Notable Discoveries
SPEAR	SLAC					Mark I, Mark II, Mark III	Discovery of Charmonium states
PEP	SLAC					Mark II
SLC	SLAC		Addition to SLAC Linac	45 GeV	45 GeV	SLD, Mark II
LEP	CERN	1989-2000	Circular, 27km	104 GeV	104 GeV	Aleph, Delphi, Opal, L3	Only 3 light ($m\; le\; m\_Z\; /2$) weakly-interacting neutrinos exist, implying only three generations of quarks and leptons
DORIS	DESY	1974-1993	Circular, 300m	5 GeV	5 GeV	ARGUS, Crystal Ball, DASP, PLUTO	Oscillation in neutral B mesons
PETRA	DESY	1978-1986	Circular, 2km	20 GeV	20 GeV	JADE, MARK-J, PLUTO, TASSO	Discovery of the gluon in three jet events
CESR	Cornell University	1979-2002	Circular, 768m	6 GeV	6 GeV	CUSB, CHESS, CLEO, CLEO-2, CLEO-2.5, CLEO-3	First observation of B decay, charmless and "radiative penguin" B decays
CESR-c	Cornell University	2002-2008	Circular, 768m	6 GeV	6 GeV	CHESS, CLEO-c
PEP-II	SLAC	1998-2008	Circular, 2.2 km	9 GeV	3.1 GeV	Babar	Discovery of CP violation in B meson system
KEKB	KEK	1999-2008?	Circular, 3km	8.0 GeV	3.5 GeV	Belle	Discovery of CP violation in B meson system
VEPP-2000	Novosibirsk	2006-	Circular, 24m	1.0 GeV	1.0 GeV
VEPP-4M	Novosibirsk	1994-	Circular, 366m	6.0 GeV	6.0 GeV
BEPC	China	1989-?	Circular, 240m	2.2 GeV	2.2 GeV	BES
DAΦNE	Frascati, Italy	1999-	Circular, 98m	0.7 GeV	0.7 GeV	KLOE

Hadron colliders

Accelerator	Location	Years of operation	Shape and size	Particles collided	Beam energy	Experiments
Intersecting Storage Rings	CERN	1971-1984	Circular rings (948 m around)	Proton/ Proton	31.5 GeV
$Spoverline\{p\}S$ (Super Proton Synchrotron)	CERN	1981-1984	Circular ring (6.9 km around)	Proton/ Antiproton		UA1, UA2
Tevatron Run I	Fermilab	1992-1995	Circular ring (6.3 km around)	Proton/ Antiproton	900 GeV	CDF, D0
Tevatron Run II	Fermilab	2001-present	Circular ring (6.3 km around)	Proton/ Antiproton	980 GeV	CDF, D0
RHIC proton+proton mode	BNL	2000-present	Circular ring (3.8 km)	Proton/ Proton	100 GeV	PHENIX, STAR
Large Hadron Collider	CERN	2008-present	Circular rings (27 km around)	Proton/ Proton	7 TeV	ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, TOTEM

Electron-proton colliders

Accelerator	Location	Years of operation	Shape and size	Electron energy	Proton energy	Experiments
HERA	DESY	1992(-2007)	Circular ring (6336 meters around)	27.5 GeV	920 GeV	H1, ZEUS, HERMES, HERA-B

Ion colliders

Accelerator	Location	Years of operation	Shape and size	Ions collided	Ion energy	Experiments
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider	Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York	2000-	3.8 km	Au-Au; Cu-Cu; d-Au; polarized pp	0.1 TeV per nucleon	STAR, PHENIX, Brahms, Phobos
Large Hadron Collider, ion mode	CERN	2008-	Circular rings (27 km around)	Pb-pb	2.76 TeV per nucleon	ALICE

Light sources

Hypothetical accelerators

Besides the real accelerators listed above, there are hypothetical accelerators often used as hypothetical examples or optimistic projects by particle physicists.

• Planckatron is a term often used colloquially by particle physicists to describe the accelerator with a center-of-mass energy of the order of the Planck scale. It is estimated that the radius of the Planckatron has to be roughly the radius of the milky way.
• Eloisatron (Eurasiatic Long Intersecting Storage Accelerator) was a project of INFN headed by Antonio Zichichi at the Ettore Majorana Foundation in Erice, Sicily. The center-of-mass energy was planned to be 200 TeV, and the size was planned to span parts of Europe and Asia.
• Fermitron was an accelerator sketched by Enrico Fermi on a notepad in the 1940s proposing an accelerator in stable orbit around the earth.
• Arguably also in this category falls the Zevatron, a term used to describe hypothetical sources for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.

External links

• Judy Goldhaber, "Bevalac Had 40-Year Record of Historic Discoveries". October 9, 1992. http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/Bevalac-nine-lives.html
• High-energy collider parameters from the Particle Data Group
• Particle accelerators around the world
• Lawrence and his laboratory - a history of the early years of accelerator physics at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
• A brief history and review of accelerators (11 pgs, PDF file)
• SLAC beamlines over time
• Accelerators and detectors named Mark at SLAC