What is MeV in Particle Physics?

MeV stands for "Million Electron Volts". It is a unit of energy that is commonly used in particle physics and high-energy physics. One MeV is equal to one million electron volts, which is the energy required to accelerate an electron through a potential difference of one volt.

In particle physics, energies are often expressed in units of MeV because they are much larger than the energies encountered in everyday life. For example, the energies of particles produced in high-energy collisions can be measured in tens or hundreds of MeV.

To give you an idea of just how large a MeV is, consider that the electron volt (eV) is a unit of energy that is commonly used to describe the energies of electrons in atomic orbitals. One eV is equal to the energy required to move an electron from one orbital to another. In comparison, one MeV is equal to 100,000 eV! So, a MeV is a much larger unit of energy than an eV.