Question

A particle accelerator sends high-velocity charged particles down an evacuated pipe. Explain how a coil of wire wrapped around the pipe could detect the passage of individual particles. Sketch a graph of the voltage output of the coil as a single particle passes through it.

Short answer

The required graph is:

Step-by-step solution

Definition of particle

Particle physics is the study of the nature of the particles that make up matter and radiation.

Explanation

A charged particle sent at high velocity generates a magnetic field that wraps around the charge's line of motion in circular loops of decreasing strength from the wire.

Due to the magnetic field created by the moving charge, a coil of wire wrapped around the pipe will produce current by induction. As a result, as soon as the charge passes through the pipe, an induced emf causes the current to flow in the wire. The following formula calculates the induced emf:

\(emf = - N\frac{{\Delta \phi }}{{\Delta t}}\)

In this equation, N denotes the number of turns in the coil, \(\Delta \phi \) denotes the change in magnetic flux, and \(\Delta t\) denotes the time duration.

Plotting the graph

Let us plot the required graph,