Olivier Whettem

Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

What is a Large Hadron Collider? The Large Hadron Collider is the world largest energy particle accelerator complex located mainly in France but the control centre is in Geneva, Switzerland. It is intended to collide opposing protons made from Hydrogen atoms because they were thought to only exist during the time of the Big Bang, the LHC will accelerate them to 99.9999% of the speed of light, and they will collide and hopefully show us what happened at the creation of the universe. What will the Large Hadron Collider do? The Large Hadron Collider will do 6 different experiments in which they hope to find out many specific things however it is also inevitable that they will discover things accidently. ALICE The ALICE experiment will collide lead ions to recreate similar conditions of the Big Bang. The data recorded by this will allow physicists to study a state of matter known as quark-gluon plasma, which is only believed to exist soon after the Big Bang. Quarks have never been found because they are found inside the nucleus, which bond the neutrons and protons together. The LHC will create temperatures around 100 000 times hotter than the heart of the sun. Physicists hope that at these intense temperatures that protons and neutrons will melt freeing all the quarks from their bonds with the gluons.

Experiment Size Weight Design Location ATLAS ATLAS is one of the two generalpurpose detectors at the project. It will search for the god atom otherwise known as the Higgs boson, also extra dimensions and particles that could make up dark matter. Physicists will record the following things Tuesday, 14 October 2008

ALICE 26m long, 16m high, 16m wide 10 000 tonnes Central barrel plus single arm forward muon spectrometer St Genis- Pouilly, France

Olivier Whettem

when the atoms collide with each other: their paths, energies and their identities. ATLAS contains eight 25m long superconducting magnet coils arranged to form a cylinder around the pipe through the centre of the detector. Experiment Size Weight Design Location ATLAS 46m long, 25m high, 25m wide 7000 tonnes Barrel plus end caps Meyrin, Switzerland

CMS The CMS experiment is the other general-purpose detector, which will investigate the same as the ATLAS is: Higgs boson, extra dimensions and particles that could make up dark matter. Although it has the same aims it will be getting to these aims differently. The CMS detector is situated around a huge solenoid magnet which forms a cylindrical coil shape of superconducting cable that generates a magnetic field which has never been created before. It will create a magnetic field of 4 teslas which is about 100 000 times more that the Earth creates. It is confined by a steel yoke which forms the main mass of the CMS (12 500 tonnes which is 22.3 A380s). Something unusual about this giant detector is that it was built above ground and then lowered underground in 15 sections and latter reassembled. Experiment Size Weight Design Location CMS 21m long, 15m wide, 15 m high 12 500 tonnes Barrel plus end caps Cessy, France

LHCb (Large Hadron Collider beauty) The LHCb experiment will help us to understand why we live in a Universe that doesnt have any antimatter. It specialises in investigating the differences between normal matter and antimatter by studying the beauty quarks. This experiment uses a series of sub-detectors.

Experiment Size

LHCb 21m long, 10m high, 13m wide

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Olivier Whettem

Weight Design Location

5600 tonnes Forward spectrometer with planar detectors Ferney-Voltaire, France

TOTEM The TOTEM experiment concentrates on forward type particles which are not accessible in general experiments. Also it will measure the size of a proton and monitor the LHCs luminosity. To do this it has been designed to work in vacuum chambers called Roman pots, there are eight of these in total and have been placed in four different locations along the beam. Experiment Size Weight Design Location TOTEM 440m long, 5m high, 5m wide 20 tonnes Roman pot and GEM detectors and cathode strip chambers Cessy, France

LHCf (Large Hadron Collider forward) The LHCf experiment uses forward particles to source cosmic rays in laboratory conditions. Although they occur naturally the collide with nuclei in the upper atmosphere which leads to a cascade of particles which falls to the ground. From this experiment scientists will be able to calibrate large-scale cosmic-ray experiments that can cover thousands of kilometres. Experiment Size Weight Design Location LHCf Two detectors: 30cm long, 80cm high, 10cm wide 40kg each Meyrin, Switzerland

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Olivier Whettem

Views from other people There are some extremists out there who think that the LHC will create a black hole and destroy the world. Naturally nature forms black holes when some stars come to the end of their lives as the collapse in on themselves. It is possible that the LHC will create a black hole however it will have nothing alike compared to the black hole deep outer space. Even if the LHC created a black hole because it would be so small the Earths gravitational field will destroy it instantly, however we as humans have to wonder that we havent found any life in the universe and perhaps all the life out there got to our stage in evolution and did an experiment like this one and destroyed their planet as a black hole was created. There is also the possibility of vacuum bubbles being created, however it has been speculated that the Universe is not that stable and with the creation of a vacuum bubble then the Universe would become more stable and in turn we would cease to exist however as a vacuum bubble has not been produced anywhere in the visible Universe then the LHC will not produce one. Some major physicists have blotted out all these concerns; the project has even gone to the courts although they failed to stop it from fully functioning. Facts 10 000 scientists and engineers are assisting with the project 100 plus universitys are taking part in the project It mainly consists of a 27km ring of superconducting magnets The magnets are super cooled to -271C which is colder than outer space The LHC will blast atoms around its circumference approximately 11 200 every second, each atom will travel at 99.99% of the speed of light. Is located 91m under the ground Each collision of a pair of protons in the LHC will release an amount of energy comparable to that of two colliding mosquitoes The beam is 2mm in diameter and has to be threaded into a vacuum pipe the size of a 50p piece around a 27km loop The project uses the BOINC platform enabling everyone with an internet connect to have scientific projects use their computer idle time to simulate how particles will travel in the tunnel The entire cost of the project is expected to be around 3.2-6.4 billion

Conclusion Overall I think that since this is the largest ever Hadron collider ever built I think that it will release new knowledge into our world and explain many things. Although it has cost over $6 billion US Dollars I still think it is money well spent because anything we learn from this is worth $100 Billion just to understand how the Big Bang happened and how life started. Although the Church will be against this saying that God created the Earth, what I have learnt during this project just makes scientific sense and therefore I am excited on what they find out from this.

Tuesday, 14 October 2008

Olivier Whettem

Bibliography Internet resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider (14/10/08) http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/HowLHC-en.html (14/10/08) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4670445.ece (14/10/08) http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-09/defense-lhc (14/10/08) Book resources: Author- Communication Group, CERN FAQ LHC the guide, (January 2008), Switzerland Also available over the internet on a pdf format:http://cdsmedia.cern.ch/img/CERN-Brochure-2008-001-Eng.pdf Author- Joanna Sugden, Large Hadron Collider will not turn world to goo, promise scientists, (06/09/08), United Kingdom, The Times

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