Editing Oh-My-God particle (section)

==Collision energy==
The energy of the particle was some 40&nbsp;million times that of the highest-energy protons that have been produced in any terrestrial [[particle accelerator]]. However, only a small fraction of this energy was [[Available energy (particle collision)|available]] for its interaction with a nucleus in the Earth's atmosphere, with most of the energy remaining in the form of kinetic energy of the center of mass of the products of the interaction. If <math>m_\mathrm{t}</math> is the mass of the "target" nucleus, the energy available for such a collision is<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JW0gBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |title=Accelerator Physics at the Tevatron Collider |vauthors=Holmes S, Moore R, Peoples J, Shiltsev V |date=29 May 2014 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9781493908851 |veditors=Lebedev V, [[Vladimir Shiltsev|Shiltsev V]] |series=Particle Acceleration and Detection |page=1 |chapter=Chapter 1. Introduction |doi=10.1007/978-1-4939-0885-1 |access-date=6 February 2024 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

<math display=block>\sqrt{ 2E_\mathrm{K}m_\mathrm{t}c^2+(m_\mathrm{p}+m_\mathrm{t})^2c^4 }-(m_\mathrm{p}+m_\mathrm{t})c^2</math>

which for large <math>E_\mathrm{K}</math> is approximately

<math display=block>\sqrt{ 2E_\mathrm{K}m_\mathrm{t}c^2}.</math>

For the Oh-My-God particle hitting a [[nitrogen]] nucleus, this gives 2900&nbsp;TeV, which is roughly 200&nbsp;times higher than the highest collision energy of the [[Large Hadron Collider]], in which two high-energy particles going opposite directions collide.<ref>{{cite news |author=Jowett, John |date=November 2015 |title=Lead-ion collisions: The LHC achieves a new energy record |website=CERN Bulletin |url=https://cds.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2015/49/News%20Articles/2105084?ln=en |access-date=February 24, 2016 |archive-date=August 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230826152920/https://cds.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2015/49/News%20Articles/2105084?ln=en |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Nerlich, Steve |date=13 June 2011 |title=Oh-My-God particles |website=[[Universe Today]] |via=phys.org |url=https://phys.org/news/2011-06-oh-my-god-particles.html |access-date=June 30, 2019 |archive-date=June 30, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190630191829/https://phys.org/news/2011-06-oh-my-god-particles.html |url-status=live }}</ref> In the center-of-mass frame of reference (which was moving, in our frame of reference, at almost the speed of light), the products of the collision would therefore have had around 2900&nbsp;TeV of energy. This would have transformed the nucleus into many particles moving apart at almost light speed in the center-of-mass frame of reference. As with other cosmic rays, the collision generated a cascade of relativistic particles as the particles interacted with other nuclei.