21 December 2006

Science: The Large Hadron Collider at CERN

Science report by Aurgha Mahmud.


The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) created at the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN) will attempt to recreate the Big Bang to discover the particles at the heart of the atom.

Scientists at the European laboratory for particle physics, the world's largest particle physics centre based on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, have united to study the building blocks of matter and the forces that hold them together. Founded in 1954, the laboratory was one of Europe's first joint ventures and includes 20 member states.

Why The LHC?

Due to be switch on in Autumn 2007, the particle accelerator will collide beams of protons and lead nuclei in order to gain greater understanding of many unsolved questions, including the reason why elementary particles have mass. The LHC will be able to detect the hitherto illusory Higgs boson.

Similarly, supersymmetric particles are being sought to achieve unification of the four fundamental forces as predicted by supersymmetry, or SUSY. As a further test of the Standard Model theory, the LHC will be utilised to unravel one of the riddles of anitmatter.

How Does It Work?

The LHC will accelerate two beams in opposite directions and is being built in the same tunnel as CERN's Large Electron Positron collider (LEP), keeping costs down and creating the most versatile particle beam factory in the world. It will collide beams of protons at an energy of 14 TeV while beams of lead nuclei will smash together with a collision energy of 1150 TeV. Such collisions will happen 800 million times a second.

Using superconductivity, the LHC's accelerated beams will be kept on track in strong magnetic fields. The LHC will operate at about 300 degrees below room temperature. With its 27 km circumference, the accelerator will be the largest superconducting installation in the world.

For more information visit the CERN website.

Research: December 2006

Related websites:
CERN website.
Channel 4 News report.
Newscientist article.

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3 Comments:

Anonymous said...

7 TeV not adequate for creation of singularity within event horizon

 18/02/07 04:34  
Anonymous said...

Hey .. be careful with that! and good luck.

 20/01/08 06:57  
Anonymous said...

ehm...Hardon? :P

 01/04/08 09:40  

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