why should we collide protons... why not using electrons or neutrons??
They accelerate protons to the speed of light and then collide them ... now electrons are much lighter than protons are, so by applying the same acceleration on electrons, could we have particles that are faster than light???
Thanks..
The LHC accelerates protons to not quite the speed of light, just as the LEP accelerated electrons to not quite the speed of light. Accelerating any particle with mass to the speed of light, let alone faster, is impossible.
The reasons to use hadrons are multiple. The biggest reason is that the energies obtained increase with the mass of the particles accelerated - protons are more than 1000 times more massive than electrons. Another is that hadrons interact through the electromagnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces, whereas electrons do not experience the strong force. Thus using hadrons, the LHC can also explore the physics of the strong nuclear force (the LHC was built for a lot more than just looking for Higgs bosons).
The choice of protons rather than other hadrons in very practical. You can't accelerate or steer neutral particles easily - hence neutrons are not suitable. And, other hadrons would require another accelerator to produce them, in relatively small numbers with short half lives. Protons are stable, readily obtained allowing large numbers to be injected into the accelerator.
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