[jeffreyH (OP)]

What do you think?

[paulggriffiths]

Only if you have some new super fast transistor we don't know about to switch each electromagnet on going around.
Or build yourself an alternator spinning near the speed of light.

[timey]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/mar/18/excitement-grows-over-large-hadron-colliders-possible-new-particle-lhc

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/physicists-detect-whiff-new-particle-large-hadron-collider

Would it require mini particles?  (chuckle)

:link 1
Alternatively, it could mean the Higgs itself is made up of a bunch of smaller particles.

:link 2
For decades, particle physicists have yearned for physics beyond their tried-and-true standard model. Now, they are finding signs of something unexpected at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s biggest atom smasher at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. The hints come not from the LHC’s two large detectors, which have yielded no new particles since they bagged the last missing piece of the standard model, the Higgs boson, in 2012, but from a smaller detector, called LHCb, that precisely measures the decays of familiar particles.

[jeffreyH (OP)]

Only if you have some new super fast transistor we don't know about to switch each electromagnet on going around.
Or build yourself an alternator spinning near the speed of light.

Both would be useful. 

[timey]

How would you power it?  I just can't see a regular electric extension cord from house to garden shed coping.

[chiralSPO]

Yes. Totally doable. Not easy, but nothing impossible about building a small cyclotron or linear accelerator.

Michio Kaku built one for his high school science fair: https://www.quora.com/How-did-Michio-Kaku-construct-a-particle-accelerator-in-his-garage-Additionally-how-long-did-it-take

 

[Bored chemist]

It kind of depends what you mean by a particle accelerator.
You could get one of these
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube
and crank up the voltage.
Or, with a big shed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betatron

[jeffreyH (OP)]

It kind of depends what you mean by a particle accelerator.
You could get one of these
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube
and crank up the voltage.
Or, with a big shed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betatron

It's the 4 ton magnet that puts me off the idea. Not cheap.

[jeffreyH (OP)]

My wife has just suggested making it out of Lego. She was joking as far as I can tell.

[evan_au]

Here are some projects aiming to produce a particle accelerator on a chip, perhaps powered by an optical fiber:
See: http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/devices/nanofabrication-enables-acceleratoronachip-technology

[Tomassci]

If you have huge garden...
You can.

[alancalverd]

Van de Graaff generators are easy to build in a garden shed and a lot of fun. You can probably get a 200 keV electrostatic electron accelerator to work in a small shed but once you go much above this voltage you will have problems with corona discharge and it's probably cheaper to buy a 400 - 2,000 keV machine with gas insulation than make one from scratch.

You need to be a good glass blower to make a betatron tube but they are available on the open market - there used to be a good range of Russian tubes at a sensible price and the magnet and electronics are not beyond a skilled amateur's capability.

Accelerating heavier particles is hard work, though you can use the VdG principle for protons but the ion source is a bit of a challenge. That said, of course, all laboratory equipment was orginally made by some bloke in shed, so why not have a go?   

[chris]

Isn't an old-fashioned television set a particle accelerator? If so, then I know quite a few people who have installed particle accelerators in their potting sheds to provide background stimulation (known as watching the match) while they are "gardening"...

[jeffreyH (OP)]

Step 1 Build or buy a Van de Graff generator.
http://vibgyor2u.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/van-de-graaff-generator-its.html?m=1