The Big Bang Machine -- As experiments go, the Large Hadron Collider at Cern is one of the biggest. Its circular tunnel is 17 miles long, and the most expensive at a cost of six billion dollars. Presenter Brian Cox tackles the question: what exactly is it going to tell us?


All 5 Parts of - The Big Bang Machine http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list...

Sid2, you gotta be like the most awesome poster I know over the whole interwebs!

In SI units, the LHC tunnel is 26659 metres long and they want to pump up collision energies to 14 TeV (center of mass energy). TeV = 10^12 eV is a derived unit used in atom and mainly nuclear/particle physics. 1 eV ~ 1.6*10^-19 J.

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. . . a few appreciate the material I share.

I just hope that CERN gets some work from the LHC lined up for the BOINC community to crunch.

I'm one of those who do. Thank you!

Thanks all for the attaboys!


John Ellis' research interests focus on the phenomenological aspects of particle physics, though he has also made important contributions to astrophysics, cosmology and quantum gravity. Most of his publications relate directly to experiment, from interpreting measurements and the results of searches for new particles, to exploring the physics that could be done with future accelerators.

He was one of the pioneers of research at the interface between particle physics and cosmology, which has since become a sub-specialty of its own: particle astrophysics. He has long been an advocate and supporter of future accelerators, notably the LHC.

Large Hadron Collider (LHC CERN) Particle Accelerators and Matter/Anti-Matter Explained

What is the Large Hadron Collider and what is it looking for? This video also features sixtysymbols' very own "Small Hotrod Collider".

CERN hopes to run the LHC for 18-24 months at a collision energy of 7 TeV (3.5 TeV per beam)


. . . we [CERN] reached last week is to run the LHC for 18 to 24 months at a collision energy of 7 TeV (3.5 TeV per beam). After that, we’ll go into a long shutdown in which we’ll do all the necessary work to allow us to reach the LHC’s design collision energy of 14 TeV for the next run. This means that when beams go back into the LHC later this month, we’ll be entering the longest phase of accelerator operation in CERN’s history, scheduled to take us into summer or autumn 2011.



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The LHC Gameplan


Once the 7 TeV run is over, CERN will shut the LHC down in 2012 for a year or more to prepare it to go straight to maximum-energy 14 TeV collisions in 2013. This will be a complex job that will involve replacing some 10,000 superconducting magnet connections with more robust ones.

. . . the decision to run at lower energies still offers plenty of opportunity for CERN researchers, who could make major discoveries such as supersymmetric particles – or even something totally unexpected – relatively early. Indeed, the run energy of 7 TeV is still 3.5 times greater than at the Tevatron collider at Fermilab in the US, which until December was the world's most powerful collider.

What will be discovered – if at all – depends largely on how heavy such new particles are and on how easy they are to spot among "background" processes taking place in the proton–proton collisions.


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The machine, which has been in a winter shutdown since December, will be started up again around Feb. 20, CERN said, and should reach its operating power in March.

The collider will not shut down for repairs next winter as originally planned, but in 2012. It will start up again in 2013.

Officials said the collider would still take a planned monthlong break from colliding protons this fall. During that time, it will collide lead ions in an attempt to produce a so-called quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter that existed just after the Big Bang.


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First results from Large Hadron Collider published


The experiments, smashing protons into each other, produced a few more subatomic particles known as pions and kaons than the team was expecting.

"The level is somewhat higher than the most popular models had predicted, and it looks like it is going to increase with energy a little bit more steeply than we expected," said Roland Gunter, a CMS collaboration scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.

"I think it's not going to be a problem, but it is one of the many things that we need to know as we move toward searches for the most rare particles and new physics," he told BBC News.

He added that the "extra" particles will be more of an issue when, later in 2010, the LHC dedicates itself to collisions involving ions of the element lead, a markedly heavier pair of targets resulting in an even larger array of particles on impact.

"We'll know much more about that in two or three months when we look at the next higher energy of 7 TeV (trillion electron volts)."



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Virtual Visits

Though you may not be able to visit the detectors in person, you can visit four of the LHC experiments virtually. The ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb virtual visits give you a panoramic 360 view of the detectors. You can wander throughout the ATLAS cavern, get a guided tour of the CMS assembly site with physicist Dave Barney, take a close look at the heart of the ALICE detector, or even enter the LHC tunnels from LHCb.


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Large Hadron Collider to fire up again next Thursday


Official spokesmen for international particle-punishing science alliance CERN have thus far remained cagey about the exact date for the mighty machine's restart, but persons familiar with the matter tell the Reg that the 2010 proton billiards season is set to open on Thursday the 25th.



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Scientists have restarted the world's most powerful atom-smasher overnight, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said Sunday, as they launch a new bid to uncover the secrets of the universe.


"The LHC is on its way again. First beam of 2010 circulated in each direction by 04.10 CET (0310 GMT)," said CERN in a tweet on its website on Sunday.


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Big Bang experiment may reveal dark universe: CERN


Dark matter, which scientists believe makes up 25 percent of the universe but whose existence has never been proven, could be detected by the giant particle collider at CERN, the research center's head said Monday.

"Our Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could be the first machine to give us insight into the dark universe," he said. "We are opening the door to New Physics, to a discovery period."

Astronomers and physicists say that only 5 percent of the universe is known currently, and that the invisible remainder consists of dark matter and dark energy, which make up some 25 percent and 70 percent, respectively.

"If we can detect and understand dark matter, our knowledge will expand to encompass 30 percent of the universe, a huge step forward," Heuer said.


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By the end of March 2010, LHC scientists hope to push accelerated protons to record-breaking speeds, topping an energy of 7 trillion electron volts (an electron volt -- or eV -- is a unit of energy used by physicists when describing the kinetic energy of subatomic particles).

The LHC initially broke the world record in November 2009 when accelerating protons to an energy of 1.18TeV. 7TeV will be 3.5 times more powerful than its nearest competitor, Fermilab’s Tevatron in Batavia, Ill.

As this experiment is very complex, long periods of down time are required for CERN scientists and engineers to upgrade and repair the Big Bang machine. Although a recent BBC article alluded to some kind of unexpected shutdown at the end of 2011 for a year, this is actually standard operating procedure.

According to a March 10, 2010, CERN press release:

Traditionally, CERN has operated its accelerators on an annual cycle, running for seven to eight months with a four- to five-month shutdown each year. With the LHC, things are different. Being a cryogenic machine operating at very low temperature, the LHC takes about a month to bring up to room temperature and another month to cool down. A four-month shutdown as part of an annual cycle no longer makes sense for such a machine. That’s why CERN decided at the end of January 2010 to move to a longer cycle with longer periods of operation accompanied by longer shutdown periods when needed.

So, the LHC is scheduled to run at half power until the end of 2011 when it will be upgraded to operate at full capacity.



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Scientists at CERN, the European nuclear research agency, announced Friday morning that they had accelerated beams of protons at the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, to energies of 3.5 trillion electron volts.

That is a new record, three times the energy of any other machine on earth, and means that the collider, after 15 years and $10 billion, is on the verge of beginning to do physics experiments. Physicists hope to begin colliding the beams by the end of the month.


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thank you for the information, much appreciated.

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Today we are serious. It's CERN's D-Day

Follow live info on CERN's Webcast on 5 channels

If anyone is interested in live feeds direct from some of the LHC displays (updated every 10secs):

http://meltronx.com/ for dispays

and

http://meltronx.com/lhcweb/ for displays and webcams together

Use the drop-down box at the bottom for other options

I don't know what half of it refers to, but it's kinda addictive waiting for the next beam to go through...

Mark

April 18, 2010 — The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe. Two beams of subatomic particles called 'hadrons' either protons or lead ions will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.

Didn't see this one Posted yet ...

June 28, 2010 LHC smashes beam collision record

The world's highest-energy particle accelerator has produced a record-breaking particle collision rate - about double the previous rate.

The collider is now generating around 10,000 particle collisions per second, according to physicist Andrei Golutvin. The LHC is housed in a 27km circular tunnel under the French-Swiss border > More

Lisa Randall, on racing protons around giant underground rings.

http://www.bigthink.com/science-techn...

Upgrade of Cern particle accelerator postponed


The world’s most powerful particle accelerator at the Cern research facility near Geneva is running so well that its closure for an upgrade has been postponed.

The Cern management announced on Monday that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – which among other things seeks to answer questions about the origins of the universe – will now run through to the end of 2012 with a short technical stop at the end of 2011.


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