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Glossary
Accelerators: Facilities in which electrically charged
particles (e.g. electrons, protons or their antiparticles)
are accelerated to high energies in electric
fields. Accelerators are used in physics to investigate
elementary particles and their interactions.
They also serve as sources of intense electromagnetic
radiation.
Antimatter: Matter composed of atoms which are
themselves made up of antiparticles.
Antiparticles: Every type of elementary particle has
a corresponding antiparticle. Should a particle encounter
its antiparticle they annihilate each other
in a burst of pure energy. Antiparticles have the
same mass and belong to the same group as their
partners. They differ in only a few properties, such
as in the sign of their charge.
Bosons (exchange particles): In the Standard
Model, these are special particles which mediate
the interactions between particles. The gluons, the
photon and the W and Z bosons act as exchange
particles.
Brilliance: Quantity for describing the quality of
a synchrotron radiation source. The brilliance is a
measure of the concentration of the radiated
photons.
CERN: Abbreviation for the European Laboratory for
Particle Physics in Geneva (originally known as the
Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire).
DESY: Abbreviation of Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron
(German Electron Synchrotron), one of the
16 HGF research institutes in Germany. Also the
name of the center’s first electron ring accelerator.
Detector: In particle physics, this refers to a complex
instrument built from numerous different individual
components. It detects elementary particles
and their reactions by recording their tracks
and measuring their energy.
Dimensions:
10-15 f (femto) 1 thousand million millionth
10-12 p (pico) 1 million millionth
10-9 n (nano) 1 billionth
10-6 µ (micro) 1 millionth
10-3 1
m (milli) 1 thousandth
103 k (kilo) thousand
106 M (mega) million
109 G (giga) billion
1012 T (tera) million million
1015 P (peta) thousand million million
DORIS: Name of a storage ring (originally Double-
Ring Store) in operation at DESY. Since 1993, DORIS
has been operated exclusively as a source of synchrotron
radiation.
Electron: Stable, negatively charged elementary
particle belonging to the lepton group. Along with
protons and neutrons, one of the fundamental
particles of the atom. Also the carrier of electric
current.
Elementary particle: Smallest unit of matter created
in the big bang.Most of this matter decayed or
was transformed within fractions of a second after
the creation of the universe.Of the few stable types
of particle to survive the birth of the universe, two
quarks and the electron became the buildingblocks
of all atoms.