The coldest and emptiest place in the solar system. The highest energies ever created. Cameras the size of cathedrals. A machine 27km long. LHC Overview [CERN]
The biggest machine in the world to study the smallest particles in the universe Based in a 27-km circular ring 100m underground Home to 4 gigantic particle detectors generating 3 DVDs’ worth of data every 10 seconds hadrons are sub-atomic particles like protons and neutrons, whose constituent quarks experience the strong nuclear interaction.
How can you study particles that are too small to see with light?
This microscope can’t resolve anything smaller than 1 micrometer (1 m) across (1 m = m or m) The wavelength of light is too long to resolve details any smaller The Xy table and microscope [CERN]
The shorter wavelength resolves details down to the size of molecules… It’s as small as we can look by shining a beam of electromagnetic radiation You just can’t “see” what’s inside atoms - it needs a different approach
Particle accelerators can give us clues about what is inside atoms themselves The LHC accelerates particles to nearly the speed of light, and collides them with incredible energy inside huge detectors Studying the results lets us test our ideas about the very smallest units of matter, a billion times smaller than the atom LHC Tube in Tunnel [CERN]
Our current theoretical picture of these basic units and the interactions between them is the standard model It explains a lot, but there are holes in it It doesn’t include gravity, or explain what gives particles mass, for example Scientists expect the missing pieces of the jigsaw to appear when they create very high energies in the LHC The Standard Model [CERN]
Einstein showed that matter and energy are interchangeable: matter is like “concentrated energy” On a tiny scale, the LHC recreates the incredibly hot, dense conditions close to when the universe began Hadrons smash together with so much energy that some energy turns into mass, briefly creating particles that haven’t existed since the Big Bang
The LHC lets us glimpse the conditions 1/100th of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang: the hot beginning of the universe before it cooled enough for normal matter to exist It might reveal what the mysterious dark matter and dark energy, that make up 96% of the universe today, actually are And explain the mystery of what happened to all the antimatter that was made when the universe began but has since vanished… Or raise completely new questions Big Bang [CERN]
Four different gigantic detectors use layers of advanced sensors to measure the direction, charge, mass and energy of the particles showering out from the collisions Scientists then piece together what happened in the collision, searching for the signatures of new particles or phenomena CMS endcap being lowered into position [CERN]
1232 superconducting magnets at 1.9K (-271.3C ), just above absolute zero and colder than outer space Ultrahigh vacuum, the emptiest place in the solar system Dipole magnet schematic [CERN]
Proton bunches circle the 27km ring 11,000 times a second At % the speed of light And collide with more than ten times as much energy as the previous most powerful accelerator Which hasn’t stopped them planning an upgrade to the LHC, and maybe an even bigger accelerator… Simulated collision of two protons in ATLAS [CERN]
A new view of the building blocks of the universe and the physical laws that make it the way it is? A new physics, beyond the standard model? Watch this space… Simulated lead-lead collision in ALICE [CERN]
Log on to the LHC UK website to find out moreLHC UK website