LHC | World Tech Today

Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN restarts after a two year upgrade

Apr 6, 2015 by Ambika Mahajan Leave a Comment

The largest machine in the world, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), got back into action after a two year upgrade at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), amid great jubilation. With the LHC up and running once again, scientists will renew their efforts to unravel the mysteries regarding the formation of the universe.

“After two years of intense maintenance and several months of preparation for restart, the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, is back in operation,” said a statement released by the CERN.

“Today (Sunday) at 10:42 am (0842 GMT) a proton beam was back in the 27-kilometer (17-mile) ring, followed at 12:27 pm by a second beam rotating in the opposite direction,” it added.

The LHC, which is also called the ‘Big Bang’ LHC, was shut down two years back for a refit. The revamp includes higher energy beams and voltages, new magnets and an overall examination of the wiring of the underground LHC tunnel that runs 27km long. Additionally, the four major detectors and its multiple magnets were also checked comprehensively. The more advanced LHC is now all set to embark on a new journey into discovering ‘dark matter’.

Scientists hope that the upgraded machine will be able to give proofs of what has been called “New Physics”, which includes “dark matter”, the invisible web holding all visible matter together.

In its earlier run, the LHC had produced evidence of the Higgs- Boson particle, known popularly as the ‘God particle.’

The scientists working at the centre situated near Geneva are pleased with the initial performance of the giant sized collider. Simulation of conditions akin to the Big Bang will begin in due course.

“Now we have just managed to do the first turn with the anti-clockwise beam, the beam 2. We have been striding the beam all along the ring and we managed to keep it for 25 turns already without the RF capture, so this is already a big success,” said Laurette Ponce, the engineer in charge of the LHC.

CERN confirms Large Hadron Collider expected to restart operations soon

Apr 2, 2015 by Karla Fetrow Leave a Comment

Geneva – The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is due for re-launch after the removal of a fragment of metal in one of its magnet circuits which has been causing the delay of putting back the machine in service. This is as it was reported by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) who confirmed that it was just a matter of days before the machine which is the largest collider in the world would begin its operations.

The fragment was disabled by sending a 400-amp jolt of electrical current through to it which melted like a household electrical fuse strip metal leading to the disappearance of the short circuit on the collider.

However, it is not all done as scientist are expected to carry out more tests on the circuits around the fault area. This is going to cause another two –week delay into restarting the machine.

The collider which is of 27-kilometre (17-mile) length is in a a ring-shaped tunnel on the French-Swiss border into which two beams of protons are usually sent in opposite directions. The same beams are bent by powerful magnets to enable them collide at common points around the track.

The collisions ramping of up to twice the power of the first runs resulted to the discovery of Higgs boson. This was in 2012 according to scientists in CERN which happens to be the top research centers globally.

The product captured in the collider’s detectors as a result of the collision is usually analyzed by scientists globally for any symbols of new evidence about the cosmos and more importantly how it goes about its operations right from the elementary particle level.

The scientist have since indicated that their main aim is to determine the nature of the unseen dark matter that has been described to make up about 80 percent of the total mass of the universe. They are hopeful too that they will be able to get theoretical concepts as well as possible extra dimensions.

Large Hadron Collider back in Action to solve the Mystery behind the Dark Matter

Mar 9, 2015 by Karla Fetrow Leave a Comment

Large Hadron Collider was sidelined three years ago from groundbreaking discoveries for purposes of maintenance. The Higgs Boson facility which is commonly referred to as the “God Particle” is said to be the world’s most powerful smasher and as reported by Financial Times. It was believed that its upgrading would ensure that it is able to dig deeper into the dark matter which apparently will only interact with the ordinary matter through gravity.

Never the less the Collider which was only discovered after the use of LHC and it is known to give mass to other particles is now back to action. At the speed of light, it is able to blast protons. In addition and with its power, it can detect elusive superparticles which are said to be more massive than their partners.

Using this new model, Physicists will be out to test that Higgs Boson can literally be fragmented into elements of dark matter. It will go further into relating different elementary particles which would have been found on the standard model and especially so the dark matter. Earlier on and before the discovery of this new model in 2011 at the CERN, it was believed that the Standard Model was the final one.

At some point,it is possible that by a simple destruction of a light particle commonly known us photon, alongside a particle of dark matter, it is thought that Higgs Boston is able to provide energy for the dark matter. However this new theory still does not completely explain why the better part of the universe is made up of the dark matter.

That said, there are two teams currently on the ground under the lead of Christopher Peterson running different experiments to establish the distinct qualities between Peterson’s standard model and Higgs Boson. It is still not very clear what results should be expected from the two experiments that are in full swing now since past studies have failed to give sufficient information on the success of Peterson’s model.

CERN Physicists all set to start new experiments with the upgraded LHC

Feb 18, 2015 by Karla Fetrow Leave a Comment

Physicists have successfully prepared the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for carrying out the second experiment in 2015. This year, they expect to make discoveries even more fascinating than the Higgs boson. The discovery had won the 2013 Nobel Prize for physics as the Higgs boson explained how objects have mass. The CERN had upgraded the biggest atom-smasher to become twice as powerful as the original. With the upgrade, the $10 billion instrument us expected to provide many answers physicists have been looking for over generations.

Explaining the process of the HLC, the CERN team said that this year the particles will be colliding at energies of 13 TeV that is 6.5 TeV per beam. In contrast, in 2012, the first experiment was done at a collision energy of 8 TeV or 4 TeV per beam. The CERN also said that they consolidated and conducted maintenance programmes in the LHC experiments to adapt it for more challenges.

In addition to increased number of collisions, this time, the LHC will be able to produce more particles per unit time. Two years back, the accelerator separated bunches of protons in time by 50 nanoseconds. This is reduced to half this time, and the separation will occur at 25 nanoseconds.

CERN director, Frederick Bordry, said that the organization has significant ideas for a long-term future. The instrument will continuously be upgraded during the course of the study. With the help of the HLC, physicists expect to find evidence to support the theory of supersymmetry.

In this context, the spokesperson for the Atlas experiment, Prof. Beate Heinemann, said that they are at the threshold of discovering “another world.” He said that the instrument could help them discover antimatter, for instance, that they had found in the beginning of the century. This time, they are looking forward to find supersymmetric matter.