gigaelektronvolts

Gigaelectronvolts, often abbreviated as GeV, is a unit of energy in the International System of Units. It is equal to one billion (10^9) electronvolts. An electronvolt is the amount of kinetic energy gained by an electron when it accelerates through an electric potential difference of one volt. Therefore, a gigaelectronvolt represents a significantly larger amount of energy.

GeV is commonly used in particle physics and high-energy physics to measure the energy of subatomic particles, such as protons, neutrons, electrons, and their antiparticles, as well as the energy released or absorbed in particle collisions. For example, the masses of many elementary particles are expressed in units of GeV/c^2, where c is the speed of light. This is a consequence of Einstein's famous mass-energy equivalence formula, E=mc^2.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's most powerful particle accelerator, accelerates particles to energies in the teraelectronvolt (TeV) range, which is 1000 GeV. This allows physicists to study fundamental particles and forces at unprecedented energy scales, seeking to uncover new physics beyond the Standard Model. The GeV unit provides a convenient scale for discussing the energies involved in these experiments and the properties of the particles they discover.