Probing the Secrets of Matter and Energy

How ultra-sophisticated technology is designed to probe deeper questions about the nature of matter and energy. From the Large Hadron Collider at Cern.

I don't like LHC anymore. They refuse to give us any workunits to crunch.

Plus, i hear they're gonna mistreat the Higgs Boson when they'll find it.

LHC News July 7, 2009 - LHC damage repaired


The last bolt is screwed to the damaged sector of the LHC (3-4) following the incident of September 19 2008.

LHCNews July 3, 2009 - ATLAS' Cosmic Run


The ATLAS experiment closed their detector at the end of May, and performed a test run using cosmic rays at the beginning of July.

LHCnews June 7, 2009 - LHCb got beam!


The LHCb experiment test their detector using a beam from the SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron)

Read this article about the grid that will supply LHC's computing needs, Does this mean LHC@home is dead?

LHC

LHC@Home was never intended to process data from the LHC, it was used for simulations related to the engineering/design and repair of the facility.

Tough luck Big Bang machine set to fire up at half power: With a repair bill of nearly $38 million, particle collider needs to work on some science


The world's largest particle collider is scheduled to go back online at about half power this fall in an effort to get the problematic machine working on some science.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, said today that it is trying to get the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) working by November after a series of problems, from electrical trouble to leaks in its vacuum tube - derailed it since it was first tested last September. The $10 billion collider was built in large part to help scientists discover how the universe was created.

James Gillies, a spokesman for CERN, told Computerworld that even though the collider won't be running at near full power, it still will be "substantially" more powerful than any other collider operating. He also said that because of the size of the machine and some of the controversy surrounding it, the world is watching and for nearly a year scientists haven't been able to use it.



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Tevatron Could Beat LHC to the Higgs Boson: Unlike the LHC, the American accelerator works


Ever since the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was under construction, the Batavia, Illinois-based Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) began to work extra-hard on finding the elusive Higgs Boson.

However, in its initial test runs, the large, CERN-operated accelerator malfunctioned and entered a period of extensive repairs, which are due to be completed this fall. It won't be until 2011 that the LHC will become capable of firing beams of protons at each other in full force, so its American counterpart, despite its smaller size and lesser power, has more chances of actually finding the Higgs Boson in its own experiments.

“The Tevatron definitely has a chance,” expert Greg Landsberg, from the Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, who is also an LHC detector scientist, adds.



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Great article. I used to go past Fermilab a couple times a week back in the 90's and never had a clue what it was!

TOTEM, a special detector for the LHC

LHC's fifth experiment, TOTEM, takes a closer look inside the proton.

CMS goes cosmic!

The CMS experiment test their detector, featuring the World's most powerful solenoid magnet, using cosmic rays.

Rolf-Dieter Heuer confirms November switch-on for the Large Hadron Collider and plans for lab's future.

Big science: managing the information

CERN's head of communication, James Gillies, explains how the lab plans to remain one step ahead of the physics bloggers to prevent rumours about the LHC and its findings from spreading.

Ever wondered what it's like to work at CERN? Seven insiders explain their roles in the world's biggest physics experiment as it prepares for switch-on after last year's accident.

Colliding Particles - Episode 1: Codename Eurostar


The first in a series of films following a team of physicists involved in research at the LHC at CERN in Switzerland. Visit http://www.collidingparticles.com for more info and to sign up for new episodes. If you like the project, please spread the word!

Colliding Particles - Episode 2: Big Bang Day


The second in a series of films following a team of physicists involved in research at the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland.

At 10.28am on 10 September 2008 the first beam of protons was successfully steered around the full 27 kilometres of the worlds most powerful particle accelerator. Adam introduces us to life at CERN and the excitement surrounding 'Big Bang Day'.

Colliding Particles - Episode 3: Conference Season


Jon travels to Philadelphia to present the Eurostar paper to ICHEP. Held every 2 years, the International Conference on High Energy Physics is the most prestigious conference in particle physics, and brings together the worlds leading theorists and experimentalists for a week of discussions and sharing of ideas.

Colliding Particles - Episode 4: Problems


The fourth in a series of films following a team of physicists involved in research at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. This episode travels to Paris and looks at the theoretical work of Gavin and his PhD student Mathieu. There is also an update on the status of the LHC following the 'incident' last year.

Colliding Particles - Episode 5: Collidonomics


The fifth in a series of films following a team of physicists involved in research at the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland.

This episode looks at the issue of funding, has an update on the status of the ATLAS experiment, joins Gavin in the mountains, and continues to follow the progress of the 'Eurostar' idea within the ATLAS experiment.

LHC gets warning system upgrade

By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News





Officials aim to re-start the collider, known as the LHC, in mid-November.

The LHC was designed to run at energies of seven trillion electron volts. But the machine will clash together protons at energies of just 3.5 trillion electron volts in its first few months of operation.

Two issues stand in the way of Cern achieving its goal of seven trillion electron volts in the immediate future:

• Firstly, engineers have discovered the collider has hundreds to thousands of faulty electrical splices between magnets.
  


• Secondly, tests uncovered concerns about a number of the magnets themselves.

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LHC Update: October 2, 2009

October 2, 2009 | 12:00 pm

Today’s issue of the CERN Bulletin reports more progress in readying the LHC for restart. Six of the Large Hadron Collider’s eight sectors are now at operating temperature (1.9 K), and current is flowing in three sectors’ superconducting magnets. The whole LHC is predicted to be at operating temperatures in two weeks.

The chain of accelerators that leads up to the LHC is ready and performing well, as demonstrated by tests carried out last weekend. Particles were extracted from the SPS, the last accelerator before the LHC, and injected into the transfer lines that link the SPS and LHC. Lead ions have also been accelerated up to the entrance of the LHC for the first time.

Also in this issue of the Bulletin, updates on the status of the four major LHC experiments: ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb; visits to the LHC by Steven Hawking and author Bill Bryson; and the results of an impromptu survey on CERN and the LHC in the laboratory’s local community.

Katie Yurkewicz

A report on the causes of the September 19th incident that brought down the LHC.

Not a moment to lose at the LHC


The unexpected delay in the start-up of the Large Hadron Collider was far from a blessing in disguise. The detectors were fully prepared for collisions at the time, and the collaborators hungry for data to analyze in search of physics discoveries. They're hungry still. But they know that a big accelerator is always something of a work in progress, and they expect to keep maintaining, building on, tweaking, and improving the LHC detectors right up to the end of the collider's long lifetime.

Everything went smoothly on Big Bang Day. But less than two weeks later, a connection between two superconducting magnets failed, setting off a chain reaction that would damage 53 of the accelerator's 1624 main magnets and require a full year to fix.

Physicists at the LHC's four major experiments had been eagerly anticipating the first collisions, which would have taken place about a month after the first beams. While those initial collisions would have been too low in energy to reveal new truths about the universe, they would have provided vital information about the inner workings of the LHC's brand-new, incredibly complex, one-of-a-kind detectors.

But even with the accelerator shut down, there has been no time to relax. Physicists not involved in major repairs to the collider have been busy upgrading both equipment and software, making minor fixes that originally had been scheduled for the LHC's first winter shutdown, and repairing nagging problems that cropped up during years of construction.


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