The Large Hadron Collider (L
HC) is a gigantic scientific instrument, which lies under France-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles which are said to be the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will surely change our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe. The LHC was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), where scientists, engineers and support staffs from 111 nations are working together for one of the largest scientific experiment ever conducted.
The idea of LHC, began in early 1980s. It was initially approved in December 1994 by a council of CERN and the construction work began on April 1998. Initial Particle beam injections were successfully carried out on August 2008. In 10 september 2008 , the first attempt to circulate a beam through the entire LHC is being scheduled. The first high energy collisions are planned to take place after the LHC is officially unveiled, on 21 October 2008.
HC) is a gigantic scientific instrument, which lies under France-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles which are said to be the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will surely change our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe. The LHC was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), where scientists, engineers and support staffs from 111 nations are working together for one of the largest scientific experiment ever conducted.The idea of LHC, began in early 1980s. It was initially approved in December 1994 by a council of CERN and the construction work began on April 1998. Initial Particle beam injections were successfully carried out on August 2008. In 10 september 2008 , the first attempt to circulate a beam through the entire LHC is being scheduled. The first high energy collisions are planned to take place after the LHC is officially unveiled, on 21 October 2008.
Lets just go through the gigantic instrument, The LHC. As its name suggests, it is a large collider of Hardons. An LHC basically consists of 3 major parts.
1) The Collider
2) The Detectors
3) The Grid
1) The Collider
Collider is one of the most essential parts of LHC. It is contained in a circular tunnel with a circumference of 27 Kilometers at a depth ranging from 50 to 175 meters underground at the Swiss-French border. The collider weighs more than 38000 tonnes. The collider tunnel contains two adjacent beam pipes which carries proton beams. The two beams will travel in opposite directions around the ring. There are about 1232 bending magnets and 392 focusing magnets installed within the pipes. Bending magnets keep beams on their circular path and focusing magnets are used to keep the beam focused. Approximately 96 tonnes of liquid helium is needed to keep the magnets at the operating temperature.
2) The Detectors
Particle detectors are simple in principle, but extremely complex in Practice. The detectors are built around the collision points where the particle beams meet head-on and they are designed to track the motion and measure the energy and charge of the new particles thrown out in all directions from the collisions. There are 6 detectors constructed at the LHC. They are ATLAS , Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE), LHCb, TOTEM and LHCf.
Detectors are typically made up of layers. Each layer is designed to detect different properties of particles as they travel through the detector. The layers nearest to the collision point are designed precisely to track the movement of particles. These layers track the movement of the particles and also slow down and stop longer lived and more energetic particles. As these particles are slowed down they release energy which is measured by the calorimeters in these layers.
3) The Grid
Grid is said to be the successor of the Internet. Grid helps to share computer processing power, software packages and data storage space. It has many applications. Its major application will be to allow researchers at CERN to share global computing power to manage and process huge quantities of data that will be produced by the LHC.
Why LHC???
The LHC will allow scientists to go deeper into the heart of the matter and further back in time than has been possible using previous colliders. Universe is said to be originated in a Big Bang and since then the universe has been cooling down and becoming less energetic. The LHC will produce tiny patches of very high energy by colliding together atomic particles that are travelling in very high speed. The energy thus produced is very high than that existed during the evolution of the Universe.
Another interesting fact is that LHC will help to test the theories put forward by Prof Peter Higgs. Peters theory gives explanation for this –“ Different types of fundamental particles that make up matter have very different masses while particles that make up light have no mass at all”. When LHC is activated , the collider produces Higgs Boson, The verification of the existence of Higgs Boson will inturn help in search for Grand Unified Theory. Grand Unified Theory seeks to unify 3 of the 4 known fundamental forces- Electromagnetism, Strong Nuclear for
ce and Weak Nuclear force. Gravity is the only force that is left out from the list. This Higgs Boson may also help to explain why gravitation is so weak compared to other forces.The results from the LHC are not completely predictable as the experiments are testing ideas that are at the frontiers of our knowledge and understanding. Researchers expect to confirm predictions made on the basis of what we know from previous experiments and theories. However, part of the excitement of the LHC project is that it may uncover new facts about matter and the origins of the Universe.
How does LHC works???
The LHC accelerates two beams of atomic particles in opposite directions around the 27 km wide collider. When the particle beams reach their maximum speed the LHC allows them to ‘collide’ at 4 points on their circular journey. Thousands of new particles are produced when particles collide. With the help of detectors placed around the collision points, scientists could identify these new particles by tracking their behavior. As the energy produced in the collisions increases researchers are able to peer deeper into the fundamental structure of the Universe and further back into history. In these extreme conditions unknown atomic particles may appear.
Problems!!!!!
The high energy particle collision performed in LHC might produce dangerous phenomena including micro black holes, strangelets, Vacuum bubbles and magnetic monopoles.
Future
The LHC is still new, but its successor - the International Linear Collider (ILC) – is
already being discussed. The LHC is a ‘discovery’ machine, a general purpose tool that will open up new areas of physics and demonstrate the existence, or not, of predicted new laws and particles. The ILC is a precision instrument that will allow scientists to explore in detail the discoveries made by the LHC.The ILC is still at the planning stage, no location for the machine has been agreed and much feasibility testing has to be conducted before the construction phase.
