The Large Hadron Collider will bring atoms together for the first time since 2022
CERN scientists will test the world's most powerful particle accelerator during the April solar eclipse to search for the «invisible» matter that secretly powers our Universe. The Large Hadron Collider will bring atoms together for the first time since 2022. Participants in the experiment hope to discover subatomic particles that exist inside atoms.
The world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator will fuse protons together on April 8 to search for the invisible particles that secretly power our planet. The universe, writes the Daily Mail.
Theories suggest there are 17 different groups of particles, and the European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN, confirmed the existence of one of them using its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2012.
The team has now restarted the LHC after two years of hibernation in the hope of unraveling the more mysterious — in particular, dark matter, notes the Daily Mail.
Scientists have begun preliminary tests by sending billions of protons around the ring of superconducting magnets of the LHC to increase their energy and ensure that the machine is worth 4 billion dollars is in working order.
And next month, CERN will launch them into a 17-mile tunnel at nearly the speed of light to recreate conditions a second after the Big Bang.
The LHC will continue the experiment until the end of this year, when it will go into an extended sleep mode. for CERN to transform it into the next version — the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC).
According to the Daily Mail, the LHC is located 300 feet underground on the border of France and Switzerland and first became operational on September 10, 2008.
The Large Hadron Collider works by colliding protons to break them apart and discover the subatomic particles that exist inside them and how they interact.
CERN researchers use protons because they are heavier particles.
The weight significantly reduces the energy lost per accelerator revolution compared to other particles, such as the photon.
This month, scientists turned on the powerful machine by injecting several beams of protons into it.
According to the Daily Mail, on March 8, teams from around the world waited in the underground laboratory to take a look at the beams rotating inside the LHC ring.
The round shape was designed so that the beam of particles had more time to accelerate and could was to achieve higher energy. But the first attempt this month didn't go as planned after the beam completed only a partial rotation.
However, experiments this month showed that the beam's trajectory was deflected as it made a full circle. However, after tinkering with the mechanics, the team watched in amazement as the beam circled the accelerator in less than 20 minutes.
At full power, trillions of protons would zip around the LHC accelerator ring 11,245 times per second, or just seven miles per hour less than the speed of light.
And on April 8, the team will send the beams through a tunnel where they will collide. The team will hunt for dark matter, which makes up about 28 percent of our massive universe but has never been seen or proven. This work will give them insight into the formation of the Universe and even its ultimate fate.
The experiment is scheduled for the same day as the Great Solar Eclipse in North America. A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon completely covers the face of the sun, briefly plunging the street into darkness during daylight hours. The spectacle will be seen by an estimated 32 million people walking along the narrow path across North and Central America.
It will be the first total solar eclipse to be seen in the US since August 2017, the Daily Mail reports.
The LHC's goal is to allow scientists to test predictions from various fields of particle physics, including measuring the properties of the Higgs boson, or God particle, which has been the missing piece of the puzzle for physicists trying to understand how the universe works.
Scientists believe that a split second after the Big Bang that created the Universe, an invisible energy field called the Higgs field was formed. As the particles passed through the field, they gained mass, giving them size and shape and allowing them to form the atoms that make up you, everything around you, and everything in the Universe. This was a theory proposed in 1964 by former high school student Professor Higgs, which has now been confirmed.
And although the particles disintegrated almost instantly during an experiment at the LHC, scientists discovered that they left a trace indicating their existence .
The LHC is usually used for just one month a year, but it has been shut down for long periods for modernization — it was last shut down in 2022 due to the energy crisis in Europe.
Running a nearly complete LHC is a complex process, requiring everything to «work like an orchestra.»
Rende Stirenberg, who is in charge of control room operations at CERN in Switzerland, said in 2022: “There is a certain sense of tension that comes with it.” «, nervousness,» he explained, adding that a lot could go wrong, including obstacles in the tunnel and problems with magnets.
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