From an Electron-Volt to Trillions of Electron-Volts
Energies are often expressed in units of "electron-volts".
An electron-volt (eV) is the energy acquired by a electron
(or any particle with the same charge) when it is accelerated
by a potential difference of 1 volt.
- Typical energies involved in atomic processes (processes
such as chemical reactions or the emission of light) are
of order a few eV. That is why batteries typically produce
about 1 volt, and have to be connected in series to get
much larger potentials.
- Energies in nuclear processes (like nuclear fission or
radioactive decay) are typically of order one million electron-volts
(1 MeV).
- The highest energy accelerator now operating (at Fermilab)
accelerates protons to 1 million million electron volts
(1 trillion electron volts, 1 TeV =1012 eV).
- The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will accelerate
each of two counter-rotating beams of protons to 7 TeV per
proton.
