The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider, is also known as the world’s largest machine. The collider, which was built over a period of 20 years with the participation of 10 thousand scientists from more than 100 countries, in order to study matter at extreme temperature and density; It stretches 175 meters underground, through a 27-kilometer-long tunnel.
Now the Large Hadron Collider is reportedly ‘awakening’ from its three-year slumber. It is stated that the huge machine, which is preparing to collide atoms much harder than before, may shed light on the mystery of why the universe exists.
Collider will begin new experiments in June
After three years of scheduled maintenance, updates, and pandemic-induced delays, the Large Hadron Collider is the third and most powerful experimental to date. getting ready for the season. If all the first tests and controls that started this month are positive, the experts note that the experiments will start in June and the machine will gradually reach full power by the end of July.
It is stated that at the end of this new experimental period, the collider could reveal other long-sought versions of ghostly particles called neutrinos, discover extremely elusive particles that make up dark matter that exerts gravity but does not interact with light, and may even help explain why the universe exists. is being done.
Stephane Fartoukh, physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which runs the LHC, said in a statement on the subject, “The completion of Long Shutdown 2, which was originally planned for two years but has been extended by one year due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The LHC has provided the opportunity to engage the numerous maintenance operations, both preventive and corrective, necessary to operate a complex 27-kilometer-long machine.” Colliding atoms with incredible speed and force to find It focuses on exploring the properties of particles in the Standard Model and looking for evidence of dark matter. will be acquitted.
Some of the biggest puzzles in physics can be solved
In addition to other tasks, the ATLAS experiment, the largest particle detector at the LHC, has puzzled scientists for decades, with neutrinos It will also try to answer important questions about However, with the upcoming LHC study, two new experiments will be put into effect, namely the Scattering and Neutrino Detector (SND) and the Forward Search Experiment (FASER). Regarding this, Fartoukh said, “These two experiments attempt to solve some of the biggest puzzles in physics, such as the nature of dark matter, the origin of neutrino masses, and the imbalance between matter and antimatter in the present universe.” uses expressions.
CERN physicist Rebeca Gonzalez Suarez, education and outreach coordinator for ATLAS Collaboration and associate professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, stated that the new research is pregnant with many surprises and is very excited about the potential to obtain new data. “The LHC generates 1.7 billion collisions per second. It’s impossible to keep all this data, so we must have a strategy to select events that we think are interesting.” “For that, we use certain pieces of our hardware that send signals when something looks interesting,” he says. he adds.
The third run is scheduled to run until the end of 2025. On the other hand, it is stated that scientists are starting to discuss the next round of upgrades for the LHC’s High Brightness phase, which will be implemented after the 3rd run, which will further increase the number of simultaneous collisions and energies and improve instrument sensitivities.
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