What does a particle accelerator do and what can we learn from using one?
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Particle colliders are one use of accelerators, but the other use is as a high-energy light source. When you accelerate electrons using magnets (and turning them counts as acceleration), they give off very high energy x-rays. These x-rays aren’t affected by the magnets of the accelerator, and can be channeled and focused to be used as an incredibly powerful microscope. These get used in all sorts of research, from materials science to biology. In fact, a fair bit of imaging data for SARS-CoV-2 came from these, such as the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory.
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