CERN is renewed after the discovery of the Higgs boson - The Mundo.es

Apparently, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN, for its acronym in French) is not unlike a college campus. A sphere-shaped building at the entrance of the resort and a small garden in which antique pieces are exhibited accelerators suggest that we are in a special place.

But here on the border between Switzerland and France, the truly extraordinary happens under our feet. A hundred meters depth there is a tunnel 27 kilometers in circumference by circulating protons collide nearly the speed of light. This is the Large Hadron Collider (Large Hadron Collider, LHC) accelerator ever built more large particles. A multi-million dollar pharaonic work is allowing performing many consider the greatest experiment in the world.

since its inauguration in 2008, the LHC is considered a landmark of engineering and science, July 4, 2012, when it was announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, earned a prominent place in the history of Physics. Now it has become the first big technical stop to make improvements and prepare the next stage of the great accelerator, starting in 2015. And here there is still a lot of science to be done.

The ‘Time Machine’

What is the Universe made of? CERN, an international organization founded in 1954, was created to investigate what is composed of matter. “We do not understand most of the Universe,” says Luis Alvarez-Gaume, a theoretical physicist at CERN for a quarter of a century. As detailed only 4% of the Universe is made of atoms, that is, it is matter like ours. The vast majority is dark energy (74%) and dark matter (22%), but do not know what it is or where it came from, “well not even understand that 4%”

.To try to understand , CERN built instruments like the LHC, which cost about 3,000 million and has been dubbed the Time Machine. And here the scientists played a similar conditions that must occur after the Big Bang , the big bang that created the universe 13,700 million years ago.

One of the main goals of the LHC was to confirm or refute the existence of the Higgs boson, the only particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics remained to be discovered and that was thought to have a key role in mechanism by which the mass of the universe originates. It is named for British Peter Higgs, one of the theoretical physicists in the 60 proposed its existence and whose work has received in 2013 [with François Englert] the Nobel and the Prince of Asturias Award. “Many people bet on that you could not discover. But the Higgs who have seen our experimental colleagues is very similar to that described in 60. It was a work of immense difficulty, how to find a needle in a haystack, “says Alvarez-Gaume.

“We have discovered a particle that we believe is the Higgs boson, is not 100% confirmed but probably never will be. Now it determine their properties, “explains Leon Isidro Gonzalez, physicist at the University of Oviedo, who worked on the LEP accelerator, which preceded the LHC.

addition to accurately study the Higgs boson, for the director of CERN, Rolf Heuer, the great aim of the LHC starting in 2015 will be to investigate dark matter: “We know it exists but do not know what is. We really hope that the LHC will open the first window and give us some ideas, “he explains during a news conference with Spanish journalists invited to visit the facilities of the CERN technical advantage of the great accelerator break.

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CERN

100 meters underground

After traveling by bus

eight kilometers surrounded by snowy mountains, we began our descent by elevator into the bowels of the LHC, 100 meters underground. Now we’re French territory, as in our first stop visit the CMS experiment, one of the four detectors [the others are called ATLAS, LHCb and ALICE] placed at various points of the circular ring of 27 km. These four places are loaded with two beams collide protons traveling at a speed close to the light detectors can register them, analyze them and find particles, such as the elusive Higgs boson.

Although Grand

Hadron Collider is now operational, safety standards prohibit the cave reduction pregnant women and people with pacemakers due to the large amount of electrical equipment and no remaining traces of radiation. Naturally, the helmet is mandatory and can not wear heels. When the LHC is running, is forbidden to enter the caves. According to the canary has Garoe González, Barcelona IFAE physicist and researcher at ATLAS, to ensure that no one in the caves, each person should wear low key and give it to the exit. From time to c hen, some confused and forget to return it can not start until it is located.

The coldest place in the Solar System

accompanies us during our tour José Miguel Jiménez, one of the scientists who best knows the ins and outs of this underground ring whose interior is considered the emptiest and coldest place in the solar system. During the past eight years at CERN [been here almost two decades] has been the head of the team of 140 people which is responsible for vacuum systems throttle and coating technologies that allow the beam to flow in a more efficient in the tunnel. In January, he will enter the CERN directory as head of the Department of Technology.

a firefighter with us, let us go deeper into the tunnel which, as we explain, often do visitors accessing this area. Jimenez shows, for example, the ring zones in which the temperature reaches -271 ° C. The record while circulating beams have remained continuously through the tunnel is 22 ½ hours. “When the LHC is in operation we have engineers and technicians working 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” says Jimenez, detailing that in 2012 the LHC was operational from 6 January to 18 December.

We enter now the spectacular cave in the CMS detector, which was that, in parallel with ATLAS, detected the Higgs boson is “Although experiments are rivals also are brothers. Because the two are about the same “ explains Jesús Puerta Pelayo manchego, experimental physicist at CIEMAT.

The detector is a large modular cylinder 15 feet high by 21 long. It weighs 14,000 tons and each of its parts can be moved longitudinally along the cavern, as best seen Now, for the work of improvement “Although its size is half that ATLAS is much heavier because it is more compact,” explains Gate, which compares the schema of these detectors with an onion. “There are several layers around the interaction point and each type absorbs particles and has a team of specialized maintenance. In the outer detector are 250 muon chambers (similar to electrons but more massive particles), of which 70 have been made in Madrid “details Puerta, who lives between Madrid and Geneva and has worked in all stages of CMS construction. “The detector is like a digital camera that has to take 40 million pictures per second and has 80 million pixels” says María Chamizo, CIEMAT physics. “You also have to be smart to be able to tell if the photos are interesting or not, because the vast majority Worth or not you can keep them because you have ability,” explains Jesús Puerta.

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operator in the tunnel of the LHC 27 kilometers, 100 meters deep.

CERN

During our visit to the cave of the giant ATLAS detector, which is in Switzerland, next to the complex at CERN, whose size is comparable to the Eiffel Tower, Inma Riu, IFAE researcher explains how to select the events recorded detectors, “We must select those that give us information about what happened in the old universe but be careful not to bias the sample ‘

. “If you have many collisions that do not interest you too much noise and you enter what you want to see mars» says Isidro Gonzalez.

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“Most of the events that we see and know, is noise. We want to see new discoveries “explains Mar Capeans, which is dedicated to improving the LHC detectors [which will be in operation until 2030], with the technologies available today.

detectors was remade in three phases [now 2018 and 2022] to “do the cleaning power faster and much more accurately study the Higgs boson. also want to learn to detect before. So far we have seen some 2,000 Higgs decaying into different processes, “adds Capeans. “With rising energy 7-8 TeV to 13 TeV and luminosity increase (equivalent to the number of collisions) from 2015 estimates that one million Higgs will see in the next decade, which would make physical precision ‘.

Although the accelerator is stopped, scientists are still analyzing the results. Last week announced they had watched Higgs boson decays into fermions: “So far we have seen the Higgs boson decaying into (force particles Z, W, photon),” explains Capeans. “The decay of Higgs to fermions (which are the particles of which matter is made) is a prediction of the Standard Model. This result is a confirmation that the Higgs we see is consistent with the Standard Model, and the data are likely that we get from 2015 which may tell us whether this continuous consistency or other models are possible or are there more Higgs bosons. “