teraelectronvolt

Terraelectronvolt, abbreviated TeV, is a non-SI unit of energy widely used in high-energy physics. It equals 10^12 electronvolts, and an electronvolt is the amount of energy gained by an electron when accelerated through one volt. In joules, 1 eV is 1.602176634×10^-19 J, so 1 TeV equals 1.602176634×10^-7 J, which is about 1.6×10^-7 joules and roughly 1.6 ergs. The prefix tera- denotes 10^12, placing TeV in a scale convenient for subatomic particles.

TeV is commonly used to describe energies of particles and the center-of-mass energy in collider experiments. It provides a practical measure for the energy scale of processes governed by the electroweak and strong forces. For example, the Large Hadron Collider operates at a center-of-mass energy of up to 13 TeV, with proton beam energies of 6.5 TeV per beam in recent runs. In cosmic-ray and astrophysical contexts, particle energies can extend well above the TeV scale, into the PeV and higher ranges.

In particle physics literature, TeV is often used alongside the GeV (1 GeV = 10^9 eV) and, in theoretical work, in natural units where c = ħ = 1. This makes TeV a convenient unit for expressing energies, masses, and momentum scales in high-energy phenomena. While TeV is common in physics, it is not an SI unit and is rarely used outside specialized scientific contexts.