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Ten years ago, the world's largest scientific instrument was activated and the beginning of a research dynasty began.
On September 10, 2008, a proton beam was fired for the first time around the entire grand located at CERN's laboratory, just outside of Geneva, Switzerland, the LHC was built to break very strong proton beams energy at a speed close to that of light. The stated goal was to create and discover the Higgs boson, the last missing piece of the standard model, our best theory for the behavior of subatomic matter. But the goal was bigger than that. We really wanted to discover something completely unexpected – so big and so new that it would mean we had to rewrite the manuals.
And the LHC did not light up quietly. In the weeks and months before, the press was filled with stories of fears that the LHC would make a black hole that would destroy the Earth. The media did a good job in dispelling grim claims, but the story was simply too good not to print, even among the most responsible print, online and broadcast media.
The CERN laboratory where the LHC is located has decided to invite the press to see the inaugural beam of the LHC. The black hole frenzy has allowed the media to manifest itself significantly. The BBC, CNN, Reuters and several dozen international media were present for the festivities. Black holes aside, it was a dangerous choice from the point of view of public relations: the new accelerators are delicate beasts and the LHC was especially so. It consists of thousands of magnets and tens of thousands of power supplies, monitoring electronics, and so on. The slightest incident could have delayed, for days or weeks, the first successful circulation of beams.[Photos:Leplusgrandsmasheratomiqueaumonde(LHC)[Photos:TheWorld'sLargestAtomSmasher(LHC)[Photos:Leplusgrandsmasheratomiqueaumonde(LHC)[Photos:TheWorld’sLargestAtomSmasher(LHC)
There were tense moments this morning. The first attempts failed because of some rebel food blocks. However, at just under 10:30 local time, the accelerator operators managed to get a very low intensity beam of protons through the entire complex. Since the LHC consists essentially of two accelerators – intended to receive beams going in opposite directions – the next step was to guide a beam into the second set of beam tubes. This happened shortly after the first success. Media around the world have announced the technical realization to the letter. Particle physics rarely gets this kind of exposure to the media.
Despite the global excitement, what was accomplished that day was relatively modest. Low energy, low intensity beams from feed accelerators were injected into the LHC. The beams had made several turns in the ring, at low energy, which meant the lowest energy for which the LHC had been designed. The operation of the LHC is to accept a beam of particles from smaller accelerators, then accelerate the beam to an energy 15 times greater than that it receives. During this first attempt, there was no intention of accelerating the beam. It was enough to circumvent it successfully.
In addition, the intensity of the beams was less than ten millionths of the design intensity. In particle beams, the intensity is similar to that of brightness when we talk about light. Beams can be made more intense by adding more protons or focusing the beam to a smaller size. That day, focus was still a future goal and only a few protons were put in the accelerator. And initially, the timing of the accelerator electronics was not quite correct. So there was clearly a way to go.
But whatever. It was exciting and it was certainly an important step on the path to full exploitation. The caps have been skipped. The champagne was drunk. The backs were slapped and pictures were taken. It was a good day.
I was not at CERN for the first beam. After all, my interest in the LHC program is to use it to break up high energy particles, and everyone knew that no collision would occur then. Instead, I was at America's flagship Particle Accelerator Laboratory and at the most influential research institution to work on LHC data analysis, in addition to of CERN itself. Both labs have a fraternal relationship and we encourage each other when a technical hurdle is overcome. At Fermilab, we decided to organize a sleepover for scientists and the local community on the night of September 10th. It was extraordinary. Hundreds of people showed up at 2:00 pm and waited for the beam to be successfully broadcast at 4:30 pm local time. I walked around talking to members of the public, journalists who could not convince their publishers to send them to Europe and other scientists. The crowd's applause was loud enough that I'd like to think that they could hear them at CERN, 4 400 miles east.
Of course, the successes of the morning of September 10, 2008 were very important, but they were only a step towards the desired result, which consisted in putting into service the most powerful particle accelerator on the planet. To do this, the 1,232 giant magnets surrounding the LHC had to be tested and tested at full electrical power. For example, CERN's accelerator staff focused on finalization. And that's where things went wrong.
On September 22, the operators shook the latest set of magnets, when a faulty solder joint caused the overheating of a copper busbar, melting it, and then letting it out. bow, and then puncture the bottle containing liquid helium. magnets to withstand the ten thousand amperes of current that made possible the powerful magnetic fields. [Gallery: Search for the Higgs Boson at the LHC]
With this perforation, the helium was released at high pressure … forming a jet strong enough to push aside a 35-ton 18-inch magnet and pull the mounting brackets out of solid concrete. Helium was at least 450 Fahrenheit and it cooled the LHC tunnel for a mile around the damage. The damage repair and the addition of additional protective equipment took more than a year.
On February 27, 2010, the LHC's accelerator staff was ready to try again. And, for about an hour and a quarter, they repeated the exercise, again moving beams in opposite directions. This time, the effort was attempted without first informing the media. And it was March 19 that staff finally accelerated the beam at an energy 3.5 times higher than the previous world record, the Fermilab Tevatron.
It happened to me at CERN that day and the achievement was accomplished in the wee hours just before dawn. I watched the monitors with colleagues and, when the stable beam was declared, the champagne, slaps and applause resumed, this time without television cameras.
Since then, the LHC has been a scientific phenomenon … delivering extraordinary beams to four detectors around the ring. The scientific output to date has been prodigious, with the two largest experiments each publishing more than 800 articles, and the entire research program publishing more than 2,000 articles.
The most significant discovery of the last decade has been the Higgs boson, the last missing piece of the standard model of particle physics. It was announced on July 4, 2012, again to a worldwide audience, with coverage of over a thousand viewers. Once again, the world has shared the excitement of discovery. [6 Implications of Finding a Higgs Boson Particle]
And the future of the LHC is well and truly brilliant. Although we have been operating this facility successfully for a decade, the intention is to continue using the accelerator to make discoveries. Currently, the plan is to continue operations for at least the next two decades. In fact, by the end of 2018, it is estimated that experiments at the LHC will only have collected 3% of the data that will be recorded during the life of the facility. By the end of 2018, the LHC will suspend operations for two years for refurbishment and upgrades. In spring 2021, it will resume its activities with much more powerful detectors.
It is not possible to know what scientific truths we will discover using the LHC. It's the thing about doing science … if we knew what we were discovering, that would not be called research. But the LHC is undoubtedly an intellectual and technological jewel – a success that the researchers of yesteryear could only dream of. The LHC can probe the smallest distance scales, the highest energies and recreate the most recent conditions in the universe, barely a tenth of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. It is an instrument of exploration and discovery. And we are just starting. It will be glorious.
Happy birthday, LHC.
Originally published on Live Science.
Don Lincoln contributed this article to the expertise of Live Science: Op-Ed & Insights.
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