In
particle physics, the
available energy is the energy in a particle collision available to produce new matter from the
kinetic energy of the colliding particles. Since the conservation of
momentum must be held, a system of two particles with a net momentum may not convert all their kinetic energy into
mass - and thus the available energy is always less than or equal to the kinetic energy of the colliding particles. The available energy for a system of one stationary particle and one moving particle is defined as:
where
- is the total energy of the target particle,
- is the total energy of the moving particle,
- is the mass of the stationary target particle,
- is the mass of the moving particle, and
- is the speed of light.