Large Hadron Collider: Features and Record Energy Generation Implications

Large Hadron Collider: Features and Record Energy Generation Implications

Question: The Large Hadron Collider/LHC has smashed energy records by reaching 13 trillion tera electron volts/TeV. Discuss the implications of this as well as the features of the LHC.

A. Features

• Large Hadron Collider is the world’s largest and most strong particle accelerator

• It commenced operations on September 10, 2008

• It is the latest addition to the accelerator complex of CERN

• LHC comprises a 27 km ring of superconducting magnets with numerous accelerating structures for boosting particle energy

How It Works

• Within the accelerator, 2 high energy particle beams travel at the speed of light before being made to collide

• Electromagnets build a superconducting state within the LHC resulting in electricity without resistance or loss of energy

• Beams are directed around the accelerator through numerous magnets of different sizes and varieties

• Particles are so infinitely small that making them collide is similar to firing 2 needles 10 km apart with such accuracy that they meet up half way
• The beams inside the LHC are made to collide at 4 locations within the accelerator ring corresponding to the following 4 particle detectors

- ATLAS,
- CMS,
- ALICE and
- LHCb.

B. Implications of Generating Record Energy

• Two opposing beams of protons were steered into reach other at 4 collision points along the tunnel of the LHC

• Energy of the collisions was 13 trillion tera electron volts; this is just 1 TeV short of the maximum amount of energy the LHC can generate

• LHC began operations in 2012 which produced the first solid evidence of Higgs boson or God particle

• First collision was followed in early May by the current record energy generation

• The higher the number of collisions per second,the more there is a chance of finding something statistically significant

• Researchers are hopeful that LHC findings will go beyond the Standard Model of particle Physics

Facts and Stats

• LHC’s previous highest energy for collisions was 8 TeV

• It was reached in 2012

• LHC aims at unlocking clues about how the universe came into being

• LHC was used to prove existence of God particle that confers mass

• This discovery was rewarded the 2013 Novel Physics prize for the 2 scientists who theorised the existence of Higgs boson in the 1960s