Related press releases
Related research
LHC may Start "Smashing Atoms" as Early as This Week
:: 10 July, 2008
Proton collisions at the world's most powerful particle accelerator that some theorists say could create matter-consuming black holes should not be expected until the fall, a Russian physicist said Tuesday.
"We are not planning to begin proton collisions this summer," said Mikhail Kirsanov, a senior researcher at the Russian Institute for Nuclear Research, which is part of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project to investigate high energy particles and the beginning of the universe.
Some media sources have reported that the LHC may start "smashing atoms" as early as this week, and previous reports speculated that such collisions could create a black hole that would consume the Earth.
"We still have to cool down the accelerator and conduct some test-runs of proton beams around the accelerator ring," Kirsanov said. "No one can predict a certain date [for the start of the collisions]."
LHC is a particle accelerator that will collide opposing beams of protons together to explore the validity and limitations of the highly successful current theoretical picture for particle physics.
The $5.8 billion international project at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French initials CERN, involves more than 2,000 physicists from hundreds of universities and laboratories in 34 countries.
The accelerator complex, 27 kilometers in circumference, sits in a subterranean tunnel one hundred meters below the Franco-Swiss border, near Geneva, Switzerland.
Once it is up to speed, it is hoped the collider will produce the so-called Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and "missing links" in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass.
Some theorists and members of the general public have long voiced fears that microscopic black holes may appear as a result of the experiment and capture the surrounding matter, ultimately leading to the destruction of the entire planet.
However, scientists have consistently dismissed these allegations as "ridiculous" - even if a microscopic black hole did form, they say, it would only last for a fraction of a second.
"Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on," Lyn Evans, the head of the project at CERN, said last month.
About Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator complex that will collide opposing beams of 7 TeV protons together in order to explore the validity and limitations of the highly successful current theoretical picture for particle physics, the standard model, which is known however to break down at sufficiently high energy. It is being built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and lies under the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland, where it is undergoing commissioning while being cooled down to its final operating temperature of approximately 2K. The first beams are due for injection in August 2008, with the first collisions planned to take place about two months later. The LHC will become the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. The LHC is being funded and built in collaboration with over two thousand physicists from thirty-four countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.
When activated, it is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and "missing links" in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass. The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory, which seeks to unify three of the four known fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force, leaving out only gravity. The Higgs boson may also help to explain why gravitation is so weak compared to the other three forces. In addition to the Higgs boson, other theorized novel particles that might be produced, and for which searches are planned, include strangelets, micro black holes, magnetic monopoles and supersymmetric particles.
The collider is contained in a circular tunnel with a circumference of 27 kilometres (17 mi) at a depth ranging from 50 to 175 metres underground. The 3.8 metre diameter, concrete-lined tunnel, constructed between 1983 and 1988, was formerly used to house the LEP, an electron-positron collider. It crosses the border between Switzerland and France at four points, although most of it is in France. Surface buildings hold ancillary equipment such as compressors, ventilation equipment, control electronics and refrigeration plants.
The collider tunnel contains two adjacent beam pipes, each containing a proton beam (a proton is one type of hadron). The two beams travel in opposite directions around the ring. Some 1232 bending magnets keep the beams on their circular path, while an additional 392 focusing magnets are used to keep the beams focused, in order to maximize the chances of interaction between the particles in the four intersection points, where the two beams will cross. In total, over 1600 superconducting magnets are installed, with most weighing over 27 tonnes. Approximately 96 tonnes of liquid helium is needed to keep the magnets at the operating temperature, making the LHC the largest cryogenic facility in the world at liquid helium temperature.
Tags: Proton collisions , world's most powerful particle accelerator , Mikhail Kirsanov , Russian Institute for Nuclear Research , Large Hadron Collider (LHC) , European Organization for Nuclear Research , LHC may Start "Smashing Atoms" as Early as This Week ,
