Large Hadron Collider closed for two years
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been shut down. The interruption is due to the need to upgrade the world’s largest particle gas pedal. Experiments will not resume until spring 2021.
Operators from the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN shut down the Large Hadron Collider at the beginning of the weekow. Gas pedal complexow won’t operate for about two years to allow for necessary upgrades and refurbishment work.
The LHC is 27 kilometers longointo a torus-shaped tunnel buried under the French-Swiss border. The tunnel is surrounded by magnets, whichore accelerate particle streams (usually protonoin, sometimes others) to enormous speeds, and then direct them at each other causing collisions. Scientists are carefully analyzing the remnants of these collisions in search of invisible bricks from which theowhich the Universe is built.
During the latest round of the experimentow, ktora lasted from 2015 to 2018, the LHC collided about 16 billionoin protonow at an energy of 13 TeV. The data collected during these collisions is more than 300 petabytesow – 300 millionow gigabyteow. They have been archived in the libraries of the CERN data center and have contributed to our knowledge of the fundamentals of physics and the Universe.
– This round of experimentsoin was impressive. Exceeded our goals and expectations. We have produced five times more data than in the earlier round, at an unprecedented energy of 13 TeV,” said Frédérick Bordry of CERN and added that the gas pedal upgrade will prepare the machine for even more collisions at a design energy of 14 TeV.
– Oprocz many other beautiful resultsow, experiments conducted at the LHC over the past few years have made enormous progress in understanding the properties of the Higgs boson – added Fabiola Gianotti, director general of CERN. – The Higgs boson is a special particle very rothat is different from other elementary particles observed so far. Its properties can provide us with useful indicationsowek on physics beyond the Standard Model – added.
The cornerstone of the Standard Model of particle physics – theory, whichora best describes the elementary particles and forces thatore they combine – the Higgs boson was discovered at CERN in 2012. And since then it has been studied there. Physicists in particularolunities analyze howob, in which the boson decays or transforms into other particles, to test the predictions of the Standard Model.
Over the past three years, experiments at the LHC have expanded measurements of decay ratesointo a bosonoin the Higgs, including the most common but difficult to detect decay into bottom quarks. The ATLAS and CMS experiments have presented roAlso an updated measurement of the mass of the bosonoin the Higgs with the best precision yet.
Beyond the Higgs boson, LHC experiments have yielded a wide range of resultsow and hundreds of scientific publications, including the discovery of new exotic particles such as Xi-cc ++ baryons and pentaquarks.
During the two-year shutdown (Long Shutdown 2 – LS2), the entire complex – gas pedals and detectors will be enhanced and updated for experiments scheduled for the next round of experimentsow, ktore scheduled to begin in 2021. Magnets and most of the components of theow will be replaced with more efficient. There will also be new power and cooling systems.
The planned changes will also form the basis for the HL-LHC project, whichorego is scheduled to begin after 2025. HL-LHC (High-Luminosity LHC) will greatly enhance the gas pedal’s capabilities. – If the LHC has so far given us a candle to illuminate what was previously invisible, the HL-LHC will allow us to shine a spotlight – moShears of Liverpool University’s Tara Shears said in June during the start of work on the HL-LHC.
The upgrade has pomoc increase the potential for new discoveries in physics. The upgrade will make the Collider much more sensitive to subtle anomalies in the laws of physics, and physicists hope these anomalies will open the door to entirely new theories of the universe.
