Large Hadron Collider sets new beam intensity record
April 23rd, 2011 - 4:30 pm ICT by IANS
Moscow, April 23 (IANS/RIA Novosti) The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has set a new world record for beam intensity by colliding its proton beams with the highest luminosity ever achieved by similar devices, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on its website.
Beam intensity is measured in luminosity - the higher the luminosity, the more particles are likely to collide.
The record intensity was reached around midnight April 22. The previous world record was set by the Tevatron collider at the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in 2010.
“Beam intensity is key to the success of the LHC, so this is a very important step,” said CERN director general Rolf Heuer. “Higher intensity means more data, and more data means greater discovery potential.”
The current LHC run is scheduled to continue to the end of 2012. The researchers at CERN are hoping to collect enough data during this period to prove or disprove the existence of the elusive Higgs particle.
The Higgs boson, nicknamed the “God particle”, was hypothesised in the 1960s to explain how particles acquire mass. Discovering the particle could explain how matter appeared in the split-second after the Big Bang.
The LHC, located 100 metres under the French-Swiss border with a circumference of 27 km, enables scientists to shoot subatomic particles round an accelerator ring at almost the speed of light, channeled by powerful fields produced by superconducting magnets.
The $5.6 billion international LHC project has involved more than 2,000 physicists from hundreds of universities and laboratories in 34 countries since 1984. Over 700 Russian physicists have taken part in LHC experiments.
–IANS/RIA Novosti
sd/rd
- Scientists trash reports of God particle discovery - Jul 16, 2010
- 'God particle' mystery to be solved by 2012 - May 18, 2011
- US 'atom smasher' could get more time to hunt 'God particle' - Jul 23, 2010
- LHC sets new beam collision record - Jun 28, 2010
- God particle may not exist after all, say experts - Aug 23, 2011
- Boffins inch closer to discovering elusive "God particle" - Jul 27, 2010
- God Particle's discovery 'biggest leap in physics' (Roundup) - Jul 05, 2012
- Indian scientists dismiss reports on 'god particle' - May 01, 2011
- Large Hadron Collider gets research programme cracking - Mar 31, 2010
- Has Large Hadron Collider rival Tevatron found elusive 'God particle'? - Jul 13, 2010
- 'Big Bang Machine' sets new energy record - Nov 30, 2009
- Ironical that Bose did not get Nobel Prize: CERN chief (Interview) - Sep 03, 2012
- Scientists claim discovery of Higgs boson-like particle (Lead) - Jul 05, 2012
- New particle found, could unravel secret of universe (Second Lead) - Jul 05, 2012
- Saha Institute to take up boson naming case with CERN - Sep 01, 2012
Tags: accelerator ring, beam intensity, cern, elusive higgs particle, european organisation, fermi national accelerator, fermi national accelerator laboratory, god particle, large hadron collider, lhc experiments, lhc project, luminosity, national accelerator laboratory, nuclear research, proton beams, ria novosti, subatomic particles, superconducting magnets, swiss border, tevatron collider