Introduction

Particle accelerators were used initially to study the laws of physics, for medical applications and energy production. Over time, we've become very efficient at building them and using them to produce raw materials for constructs. Nowadays, they're mostly used in 'Defence' systems by the Wyom Weapons Megacorp.

A Large Hadron Collider (LHC) setup typically requires several accelerator stages and lots of space to reach its full potential. Provided you've enough energy for it, you can transmute scrap resources into various matter and antimatter particles with numerous applications.

Here's an example of the smallest possible LHC setup:

General principles

The first LHC was built on Earth, a long time ago. While the technology has greatly evolved and allowed much smaller designs, the general principle remains the same: progressive acceleration lines or rings, injecting into each others.

Due to the extreme energy levels reached, different technologies are used for the different acceleration stages:

• The initial 'Normal' accelerator is used for ionization and initial acceleration up to 80% of the speed of light.
• Intermediary 'Advanced' accelerators can further increase the particles up to 99.9% of light speed. At this point, the particle can no longer accelerate and will actually gain mass as we increase its energy level, up to 400 times.
• Final 'Superior' ring is the actual LHC, increasing particles energy up to 50 TeV nowadays.

An Injector is used to insert particles at initial low speed. To avoid friction on their trajectory, particles are encased in Void Shells, allowing them to reach extreme speeds. Their trajectory, acceleration and focusing are controlled through the main Electromagnets placed right around the Void Shells. Adding Electromagnets of higher or lower tiers will change particles trajectories and transfer them between accelerators through 'Accelerator output' and 'Accelerator input' nodes. Once the target speed is reached, particles are deviated into a collision course in a 'Collider' node.

Cooling is very important for proper operation of accelerators. Due to the extreme accelerator size and low temperature involved, it'll take a bit of time for your rings to reach operating temperatures. You will need at least one Chiller per accelerator for normal operation.

Even with the uses of superconducting technologies, an accelerator does consume a fair amount of energy. The latest is provided through at least one Subspace Capacitor, supporting a lot of different energy production units.

The main use for our setup is to create new particles though collision at high energy in a 'Collider'. For this, we need particles coming from 2 opposite directions. This can be from 2 linear accelerators, or a single ring shaped accelerator. In the latest, there's 2 trajectories of particles travelling in clockwise and anti-clockwise orientation.

Void shell

Void Shells can be seen as highways for your accelerated particles: they are very happy as long as they fly through the void and you do want them to always be happy. Practically, without main electromagnets, particles will remain at the same speed but slowly deviate from their trajectory. Hence you want to add a few electromagnets every now and then for good measure.

Following the Scientist headache reduction act, vertical particle movement is no longer supported (and never was officially). Consequently, void shells will only connect horizontally to each others.

Only 3 Void Shells can connect directly to each other at any time. This is mostly because nobody has found an electromagnet design for a full cross section to work efficiently.

Accelerator slice

In its simplest form an accelerator is a sequence of 3x3 vertical slices of blocks:

• the central block is to create a void space for the particles, it shall be only made of Void Shells, nothing else.
• the 4 blocks immediately connected to the center are the main Electromagnets. They are used to maintain the particles in the void (focusing), accelerate them and orient them. It should be Void shells, Particles Injector or Electromagnets, anything else will be ignored.
• the 4 corner blocks are optional. This is where additional Electromagnets, [Subspace Capacitor]], [Chillers and Particles Collider are placed. Other blocks will be ignored.

	model
Corner	Main	Corner
Main	Shell	Main
Corner	Main	Corner

Top and bottom electromagnets are working together. You need both at the same tier for them to have any effect. Left and right electromagnets respect the same principle.

Accelerator nodes

A node is a set of 3 consecutive slices forming a 3x3x3 area with an attached Accelerator Control Point. The latest shall be aligned with the center of the node, directly connected to a main electromagnet. Each control point as a unique control channel for remote control from the Accelerator Controller.

There's 4 different types of nodes: turn, input, output and collider.

In a node, all the 12 main Electromagnets shall be present and of the same tier. However, input and output nodes may replace 1 or 2 main Electromagnets with Void Shells.

Here's an example of transition from tier 1 (right) to tier 2 (left) accelerator rings. On the right, an Accelerator output node is visible; it also serves as an Injector node (next to the chest). On the left, the Accelerator input node re-inject the particles. In between, Glass Void Shells are connecting both rings.

Accelerator turns

A turn node happens when the 3 void shells are not in a line. All corner blocks are reserved for an optional input or output node setup.

Higher particle energy requires longer acceleration, so we need to change the trajectory from a straight line into a ring and use turning node. However, higher particle energy are also harder to turn around, hence requiring larger acceleration rings. When turns are too close to each others (typically less than 2 seconds), Electromagnets will actively reduce the particle energy so they can still turn.

A turn node doesn't need a control point.

Accelerator output node

An output node can happen on a straight line or a turn. Up to 2 main electromagnets are replaced with void shells to transfer the particles. All corners shall be made of 12 electromagnets of exactly 1 higher tier than the main ones.

Particles will follow their general current trajectory, even when outputting in a turn. In other words, you can't extract from the same output node particles travelling in both directions.

Through the accelerator core and the node control point, you may adjust the condition to activate the corner magnets and eject particles.

Accelerator input node

An input node can happen on a straight line or a turn. Up to 2 main electromagnets are replaced with void shells to transfer the particles. All corners shall be made of 12 electromagnets of exactly 1 lower tier than the main ones.

Particles will follow their general current trajectory, even when inserted in a turn.

An input node doesn't need an Accelerator Control Point.

Accelerator controller

As the name implies, the controller is the heart of your setup, directly connected to one of the main Electromagnets. There can be only one for all your connected accelerators. Adding another one will randomly activate one or another depending on mother nature randomness (a.k.a. chunkloading).

This is where you can start/stop accelerators and adjust their nodes, using a computer from ComputerCraft or OpenComputers.

Accelerator injector

A Particles Injector will use connected inventories for input materials and inject them as particle bunches in the connected Void shell.

An injector is controlled remotely from the Accelerator controller through its unique control channel.

Accelerator collider

A collider node can only happen on a straight line. All corners shall be made of 12 Particles Collider blocks.

Through the accelerator controller and the control point, you may adjust the conditions required to trigger a collision. You can double the collision energy when colliding 2 particles moving in opposite direction at the same time in the node.

Collider node control point will use connected inventories to store collision leftovers, including ions, antimatter and strange matter. Electromagnetic Cells are used for storage.

Electromagnets

Electromagnets are used to focus and turn particles. They also include Radiofrequency (RF) cavities that are used for actual acceleration.

There's 3 tiers of Electromagnets, each with their own characteristics. Notably, there's a minimum and maximum supported particle energy for each tier: using the wrong tier will have no effect on particles.

Electromagnets only work below a minimum temperature. Cooling is done through Chillers placed in the corners.

Electromagnets don't accept direct power connection, instead they draw energy from the Subspace Capacitors of the accelerator.

Chiller

Chillers are placed in corners.

They are used for cooling the main magnets. The latest need to reach to their nominal temperature (or lower) before they can start operating. Adding more chillers will accelerate the cooling while increasing power consumption during cooling and normal operation.

A chiller doesn't accept direct power connection, instead it draws its energy from the Subspace capacitors of the related accelerator.

Subspace capacitor

Subspace Capacitors provide energy to the accelerator provided they're in a corner position. It's recommended to keep those close to the Accelerator controller for easier maintenance.