Like tracks guiding trains, they force charged particles to follow a path prescribed by magnetic forces. The higher the energy of the particles, the stronger the magnetic forces needed to steer them around a ring. The Large Hadron Collider, which will be the world's most powerful particle accelerator when finished in 2005, will feature the world's largest assembly of powerful magnets.
Dipole magnets are able to bend a particle beam.
Quadrupole magnets work like lenses, focusing particle beams. Locating them next to the collision detectors, physicists use quadrupole magnets to direct as many particles as possible to a tiny area at the center of their detectors, called the interaction point. The number of beam particles and the quality of the quadrupole magnets determine the number of collisions an accelerator can produce. Fermilab is one of the world's top laboratories in magnet research and development. Each section is almost 100 feet long and has a peak magnetic field of more than eight Tesla, twice the strength of the Tevatron magnets and a 100,000 times stronger than the earth's magnetic field.