The Large Hadron Collider Is Back In Action

(Credit: CERN - Photograph: Dominguez, Daniel; Brice, Maximilien)

Yesterday, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider successfully turned it on, injecting two proton beams moving in opposite directions into the massive particle accelerator. The particles will be travelling at a relatively low energy at first of 450 GeV so that the operators of the can ensure that everythings working as it should be. Once all systems are cleared, proton beams will be accelerated to 13 TeV, nearly twice the energy used to find the Higgs Boson.

And thats where the fun will start.

The Large Hadron Collider has been shut down for about two years as upgrades were made to its various systems. This included consolidating some of the electrical systems, adding magnet protection systems, and making improvements to its cryogenic and vacuum systems. The LHC will also be able to fire proton beams in bunches separated by 25 ms, half the time it used to take.

The improvements to the LHC along with the higher energies will allow thousands of physicists around the world including over 1,700 in the United States alone to conduct experiments to test theories that so far have only been the province of computer simulations.

We are on the threshold of an exciting time in particle physics: the LHC will turn on with the highest energy beam ever achieved, Fleming Crim, National Science Foundation Assistant Director said in a statement. This energy regime will open the door to new discoveries about our universe that were impossible as recently as two years ago.

The Large Hadron Colliders particle accelerator consists of a ring 27 km (about 16.7 mi) long. The protons are emitted into the ring (which is a vacuum), and then are accelerated using superconducting magnets that are cooled to near absolute zero: -271 degrees C. They are then sped up to nearly the speed of light and have energies added to them. The particles are then crashed together, which produces huge amounts of energies. By studying the byproducts of those collisions, physicists are able to discover new particles and learn other things about the physics of subatomic particles.

Some of the things that the Large Hadron Collider will be looking for during its next round of experiments will be more information about the Higgs boson and how it works. Scientists at CERN will also be trying to create the particles that are hypothesized to make up dark matter as well as evidence for the first supersymmetric particle.

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The Large Hadron Collider Is Back In Action