Introduction to Particle Accelerators and their Limitations

The paper gives a short overview of the principles of particle accelerators, their historical development and the typical performance limitations. After an introduction to the basic concepts, the main emphasis is to sketch the layout of modern storage rings and their limitations in energy and machine performance. Examples of existing machines - among them clearly the LHC at CERN - demonstrate the basic principles and the technical and physical limits that we face today in the design and operation of these particle colliders. Pushing for ever higher beam energies motivates the design of the future collider studies and beyond that, the development of more efficient acceleration techniques.