World’s largest particle accelerator undergoes repair

The end of the world might be on hold. At least until November.

Almost a year after the world’s biggest high energy particle accelerator broke 10 days after being switched on, a plan was created to resume operations, scientists and MSU professors associated with the project said Wednesday.

The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, located in Europe, was switched on this past September, with the goal of creating conditions similar to those immediately following the Big Bang. Prior to the particle accelerator’s turn-on, many around the world feared the device could create a black hole that would end the universe.

However, the multibillion dollar project at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, stalled last September when splices between several large magnets malfunctioned, causing a liquid helium leak that damaged about 25 percent of the LHC’s equipment, said Raymond Brock, an MSU professor of physics.

“It was a huge effort to repair it,” he said. “They’ve just been working constantly since the accident to get it ready.”

Brock travels to CERN intermittently each year to work with about 20 other MSU collaborators on ATLAS, a 7,700-ton detector, which, when the LHC begins operating again this fall, will collect a large amount of data to be sorted through and transmitted to various universities and institutions across the globe.

The LHC has been in the works for 15 years and has cost $9 billion. It most likely will be turned back on in November at half the energy level originally planned, Brock said.

He said it widely was understood throughout the project that it was not a matter of whether the LHC would break down, but when.

“Anytime a particle accelerator of any size is built, its first try is a mess,” he said. “You just have to fix it and try again. Even though it’s a mess to start, it always ends up working better than it was planned originally.”

Bernard Pope, an MSU professor of experimental high energy physics who also works on ATLAS, said in spite of the LHC’s problems, it still will operate on an energy level more than three times as powerful as the Tevatron, the particle accelerator at the Fermilab in Batavia, Ill., which runs on 1 trillion electron volts.

The LHC will shoot two beams of energy at 3.5 trillion electron volts, meaning when they collide, the total energy level will be 7 trillion electron volts, he said.

“Fermilab runs one against one for a total energy of two, and we’re going to be a total energy of seven,” he said. “That’s enough to see some new physics, we think.”

Pope said although the yearlong wait is somewhat a disappointment, the project is not a total loss and the collaborators are mostly just anxious to start collecting data.

“We’re still excited by the whole process,” he said. “I still sense a great excitement.”

Part of the reason there has been concern both with the public and media is because of the project’s price tag, Brock said. Collaborators at CERN, though, know their project is not infallible and are expecting problems to happen again.

“Over time, it’ll get better and more stable,” he said. “Those who have been there for a long time know this happens. It’s going to happen again.”

Jim Strait, a physicist who works for Fermilab at CERN, said the LHC’s energy level gradually will be increased throughout time, and will one day operate at its full capacity of 14 trillion electron volts. For now, however, scientists at CERN will monitor the machine’s output at the lower levels and make decisions from there.

“There are things that you can learn from operating the machine that can allow us, depending on what we learn, that will give us more information,” he said. “If that information turns out to be favorable, then the machine’s energy can be increased.”