THE WORLD’S most powerful atom smasher has resumed operations, 14 months after a costly malfunction knocked it out of action.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European nuclear research centre Cern began sending beams of broken-up atoms racing around the collider’s 27km ring over the weekend.
The LHC is built into a tunnel underneath the Jura Mountains on the French-Swiss border.
Its sole purpose is to send two beams around the ring in opposite directions at close to the speed of light and then smash the particles together in a tremendous release of energy that teaches us about the fundamental structure of matter.
Researchers from University College Dublin will be among those analysing the results of these collisions when they begin, given their involvement in one of the experiments positioned around the ring.
The LHC started sending beams around its circuit on September 10th last year, but broke down nine days later in a blaze of publicity given the huge international interest in the €4 billion machine. Repairs costing €40 million followed and now beams have finally begun circulating again.
Beams travelling in both directions were started and stopped on Saturday, a Cern spokeswoman said yesterday. “It is an ongoing process. For the moment we are very happy,” she said.
A key goal for the machine is to look for a particle called the Higgs boson, the last piece of the near complete sub-atomic particle jigsaw puzzle.
The scientist for whom the particle is named, Prof Peter Higgs, expressed his delight over the weekend that the LHC was working once again. “I am relieved . . . It has really been delayed,” he said.
He believed that Cern would proceed carefully to avoid a repeat of the failure which shut down the LHC a year ago. “I know they are going to be very cautious to avoid any problems so I am keeping my fingers crossed that there isn’t going to be any more accidents,” Prof Higgs said.