China fires up powerful particle accelerator to unlock secrets of atoms

China has brought online a record-breaking particle accelerator that can produce the world’s most intense beams of charged atoms.It gives scientists a new tool to create previously unknown atomic nuclei and advance research on cancer treatment and spacecraft materials.Scientific operations have now begun at the 2.6 billion yuan (US$384.1 million) facility in Huizhou, Guangdong province after construction was completed on Tuesday, state news agency Xinhua reported.Known as the High Intensity Heavy-ion Accelerator Facility – or HIAF – it was developed over 16 years by researchers at the Institute of Modern Physics in Lanzhou, Gansu and their collaborators.The machine can pack up to eight times as many atoms into each pulse as the previous world record, held by a German particle accelerator in Darmstadt.HIAF’s high-resolution storage ring spectrometer. Photo: HandoutUnlike most comparable facilities in operation – including the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams in the United States – HIAF combines a 100-metre-long linear accelerator, a 570-metre-circumference circular accelerator and storage rings into a single complex.