CERN launched after two year hiatus – The Economist

It is expected to increase knowledge about the mysterious dark matter, which makes up most of the Universe and the quark-gluon plasma.

The accelerator is located 100 meters underground. Photo: File

Geneva, Switzerland. The largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world again start Sunday, after a two year hiatus, announced CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

This new launch of Gran Hadron Collider (LHC, for its acronym in English), located on the French-Swiss border, which includes a ring-shaped tunnel 27 kilometers, will allow to carry out a second phase of exploration of uncharted territories of physics .

The particle accelerator, located about 100 meters underground, was to confirm the existence of the Higgs boson, whereby two CERN scientists won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2012.

That particle, which explains how other particles have mass, is considered as a key component of the fundamental structure of matter and get the flashy nickname “God particle”.

Sunday at 10:41 am, local time, a beam of protons circled the ring of 27 kilometers across the LHC in a sense, then, at 12:27 pm, a second toured the same circuit in reverse, CERN said in a statement.

“Today, the heart of CERN again beat the rhythm of the LHC,” Rolf Heuer, its CEO, said in a statement welcomed.

In the coming days, operators will check all systems before increasing the energy of the beams entering the LHC in its second exploration campaign.

During the two years of work stoppage, hundreds of engineers and technicians worked to repair and strengthen the particle accelerator to make it operate with greater energy, and thus allow physicists to expand their research field and confirming or invalidating some theories.

unexpected discoveries

This power increase will allow to experiment worthy of science fiction.

“The LHC is in great shape,” said Frédérick Bordry, director of Accelerators and Technology. “But the most important step is before us, when we bring the power of the beams to record levels,” he added.

Once you have calibrated the powerful device, the beams will be focused by magnets at low temperatures allowing the collision of protons.

This process allow the LHC work with an energy of 13 tera (VTE), ie 6.5 TeV for each of the beams circulating in opposite directions in the ring, almost double what was achieved in the previous stage.

The result are short and small but intense collisions, recorded by four laboratories installed along the big ring.

fragments resulting from collisions can contain traces of other subatomic particles, say the scientists.

Some speculate that the experiences allow make unexpected discoveries.

Researchers explore now among other things, the enigmatic dark matter and quark-gluon plasma.

The dark, invisible matter makes up most of the universe, but can only be detected by its gravitational effects, explains CERN in their website.