The Particle Accelerators that Changed Our World

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Accelerator	Type	Three Specific Accomplishments
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) CERN • Switzerland/France	proton–proton	Discovery of the Higgs boson (2012) — confirmed Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism; Nobel Prize 2013. Observation of pentaquark states (2015) — LHCb established new hadronic matter configurations. First observation of CP violation in baryons (2017) — CPV seen in Λb decays by LHCb.
Tevatron Fermilab • USA	proton–antiproton	Discovery of the top quark (1995) — CDF & DØ completed the third generation of quarks. World-leading W boson mass (2022 reanalysis) — most precise single measurement; sparked global theory–experiment debate. First observation of Bs meson oscillations (2006) — key test of flavor physics and CKM framework.
LEP (Large Electron–Positron Collider) CERN • Switzerland/France	e⁺e⁻	Z boson lineshape at ppm precision (1989–95) — pinned down MZ and ΓZ. Number of light neutrino families: Nν = 3 — from invisible Z decay width. Precision W mass (2000) — constrained the Higgs mass pre-LHC via electroweak fits.
SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron) CERN • Switzerland	proton synchrotron	Discovery of W and Z bosons (1983) — UA1/UA2; Nobel Prize 1984 (Rubbia, van der Meer). “November Revolution” charmonium era (1974–76) — pivotal J/ψ physics via fixed-target program in Europe/US. First robust QGP signatures (1999–2000) — strangeness enhancement & J/ψ suppression in heavy-ion runs.
RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) Brookhaven • USA	heavy-ion	Discovery of strongly coupled QGP (2005) — near-perfect liquid with η/s close to quantum bound. Jet quenching — large energy loss of high-pT partons traversing the QGP medium. Global vorticity in QGP (2017) — most vortical fluid observed; Λ polarization measurements.
SLC (Stanford Linear Collider) SLAC • USA	linear e⁺e⁻	First high-energy polarized beams (1989) — enabled unique left–right asymmetry tests. Precision Z couplings — electroweak asymmetries validated the Standard Model at new accuracy. sin²θW from ALR (1998) — benchmark electroweak mixing angle measurement.
HERA DESY • Germany	e⁻p	Small-x gluon density rise (1990s) — transformed global PDFs and QCD at high energies. Precision PDFs for the LHC era — H1/ZEUS combined fits underpin many cross-section predictions. First deeply virtual Compton scattering (1996) — launched generalized parton distributions (GPDs).
Bevatron Berkeley Lab • USA	proton synchrotron	Discovery of the antiproton (1955) — Chamberlain & Segrè; Nobel Prize 1959. Discovery of the antineutron (1956) — Goldhaber et al. Early hadron resonance discoveries (1960s) — foundational to the quark model.