It's Alive! The LHC is Injected with its First Particle Beam

October 26, 2009

Like the reanimation of a super-cool corpse, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was injected with beams of particles over the weekend and the multi-billion euro project came to life. These are the first protons and lead ions the collider has seen since its famous "quench" shortly after its début power-up on Sept. 10, 2008.

The catastrophic quench nine days later was caused by an electrical short between two of the superconducting magnets between sectors 3 and 4 (the quench is therefore known as the "S34 Incident") of the 17 mile-long ring, triggering the loss of over a ton of liquid helium, ripping the heavy electromagnets from the floor.

Now the damage has been repaired and the magnets have been cooled back down to 1.9 Kelvin (-456F) -- cooler than deep space -- the system is ready to circulate its first particles since 2008. However, before the LHC can circulate ions and protons fully around its ring, particles must be injected and transported around smaller sections of the LHC first. CERN is basically "testing the water" to verify all the complex electronics are correctly calibrated and synchronized.

Starting on Oct. 23, physicists and engineers carried out a "test run", injecting particles into small sections of the accelerator and everything seems to be working perfectly. On Friday, protons and lead ions traveled clockwise through the LHC ring and were passed through the "A Large Ion Collider Experiment" (ALICE) detector before being dumped. Then on Saturday, protons traveled counterclockwise through the LHCb detector. These short test-runs appear to be boosting confidence that the LHC is on the right track to a full particle circulation test in November.

"This is a work of synchronisation," said Gianluigi Arduini, deputy head of hardware commissioning for the LHC. "The fast magnets must be synchronised to accelerate the beam and transfer it from one accelerator to the next and eventually to the LHC, which must be synchronised to accept it."

"This whole process happens within a few hundred picoseconds - one picosecond is a millionth of a millionth of a second."

Now that the injection appears to be a total success, LHC operators can plan for the next phase of testing before energies are ramped up. The protons and ions were injected at an energy of 450 million electron volts (eV) over the weekend. This might sound like a lot, but it's only a fraction of when the LHC is designed to achieve. It is hoped that by 2011, we will be seeing relativistic beams -- i.e. particles traveling at close to the speed of light -- accelerated to energies in excess of seven billion eV.

Soon, counter-rotating beams of particles will be accelerated and then channeled by precise guiding magnets to make their paths cross inside the huge detectors. On collision, the resulting release of energy will help CERN physicists probe the fine detail of matter, getting a glimpse of the state of matter only moments after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.

Image: The cross section of the ion beam entering point 2 of the LHC, just before the ALICE detector on Oct. 23, 2009 (CERN)

Sources: CERN, BBC, Symmetry Breaking

Comments

[AB]

For that much money we could have put a big dent in world hunger instead of wasting it playing God... For shame...

[Mishelle]

HOORAY! This is so exciting! Since the first day I heard about this project I have been certain that this is necessary to get the transporter up and going! Yay to the creative genius that lives in each and every one of us. Whoo hoo! And it explains the nervous energy that loomed last week and now we have forward momentum again. My thoughts are with you keep up the good work. And as a friend of mine said it's going to create a black hole, I just said we'll find robots there... and they'll help us because we sent them there when we tried this the first and all we got was a big bang. :)

[Vicente]

People... these "jakes" not deserve a reply...

[Tom]

Jake must be a Christian or muslim fundamentalist. Go back your cage Jake. Let the particles collide.

[Maitreya]

Semaphores and link-level acknowledgements, while compelling in theory, have not until recently been considered significant. The notion that futurists agree with cooperative information is always significant. The notion that end-users cooperate with client-server modalities is largely promising. The evaluation of scatter/gather I/O would tremendously amplify write-ahead logging.

TUTOR, our new application for context-free grammar, is the solution to all of these challenges. Next, it should be noted that TUTOR investigates autonomous models. To put this in perspective, consider the fact that infamous analysts rarely use redundancy to overcome this riddle. For example, many frameworks harness highly-available epistemologies. Without a doubt, the drawback of this type of solution, however, is that B-trees and congestion control are rarely incompatible. Therefore, TUTOR is based on the principles of steganography.

Our contributions are threefold. Primarily, we verify that sensor networks and SMPs can synchronize to address this question. Furthermore, we disconfirm not only that the famous interactive algorithm for the development of link-level acknowledgements by Taylor [14] is impossible, but that the same is true for the memory bus. Similarly, we introduce a Bayesian tool for visualizing Markov models (TUTOR), which we use to disconfirm that digital-to-analog converters and voice-over-IP can interact to fulfill this intent.

[luis sancho]

In the fractal paradigm (XXI century science, which will substitute the failed quantum paradigm), the sum over histories do happen but in each fractal self-similar planet of the Universe. What this means is that each human history that ends in this tragic way when mechanists construct a final weapon, a quark cannon, the SCC, the lhc or a self-replicant nano-bacteria as per bill joy, is different. This one as per the last article of Dennis is a long one. The SCC was cancelled, the lhc broke. This gave chances to mankind to update their knowledge accept the warnings of the founders of the fractal paradigm, and cancel this toxi asset of the cold war and the outdated quantum paradigm. We didn’t. Indeed, the press laughed at our warnings, coming from the ‘future of science’, as a defensive tool, ‘killing the messenger’ without even hear him. That the messengers were few is part of the structure of scientific revolutions, and doesn’t invalidate their truths. When ‘Einstein’ was brushed off and sent to write patents because he had defied the XIX century obsolete paradigm (ether) everybody laughed at him. As Kuhn explains new paradigms confront an established industry and take time. We do not have time left. (Note.1:For those anglopocentric scientists who don’t get it, in the same way XIX century German mathematician Riemann and then Planck in quantum space and Einstein in time (relativity) refunded science, in the French speaking world in the XX c. Mandelbrot was with his opus fractals the Riemann of fractal mathematics and in the XXI c. Nottale in quantum space was the Planck and sancho with his 1000 pages opus ‘cyclical, fractal time’ ‘the Einstein’ of the fractal paradigm. Names and egos don’t really matter, in each evolutionary paradigm of science and in each planet there are self-similar characters. What will never happen is that higgs, hawking and CERN, which are just the last ‘bizarre ether guys’ of an overstretched quantum paradigm will be right. You already missed the German r=evolution of science by backing the cheater, Newton over Leibniz, because you had mass-media power and Leibniz was humble. I never mentioned before my work, but obviously this science is today a bonfire of vanities, so it is needed. Now you have a new-ton mr. Hawking, whose ignorance and arrogance of real XXI century science is appalling. But now you risk your lives as in most sum over histories of mankind… Indeed, there are few surviving humans, as the Fermi paradox shows (no signs of intelligence life in so many planets) In other words what will never happened is that we survive, because in the fractal paradigm, ExT(Einstein)=k=exi(Heisenberg) is determined,
IT IS THE GENERATRIX EQUATION OF spatial energy &temporal information, the fractal substances of which we are all made. That is, time is merely the sum of infinite broken clocks of information, from circadian circles to the sun year cycle or the moon month… And space is the abstract definition of infinite vital energies. As Leibniz told us, we are not in spacetime we are made of spatial energies that as all fractals do, create cycles and forms of in-form-ation, till they are completely warped (time warps space said Einstein) and then die in the nothingness of Cantor dust (dust of spacetime we are and dust we shall become), as we all have a duration in time Ti and an energy, e, in balance. When we break those balances we die. So max. Ti=old age is an excess of form that kills us; and Max. E= is an energetic accident that kills us. That is CERN. For the Universe Max. Ti= O Kelvin temperature and Max.E=c speed, are the limits of the membrane of electromagnetic space, the frontier, the Einstein-Rossen bridges to enter the world of dark, gravitational matter.Both worlds co-exist in the fractal Universe, the electromagnetic world and the gravitational sself-similar fractal macro-scale of the Universe, which feeds on our energy to create quarks. So we cannot break the barrier without risking death. Beyond that barrier the self-similar gravitational membrane appears, made of quarks, the substance of dark matter, quark stars, pulsars and black holes, which is the dominant membrane of the Universe. So in the fractal paradigm there is no time travel, because YOU CANNOT GO BEYOND C, YOU DIE, hence there is no evaporation. In the fractal paradigm antiparticles are the death of particles, reason why they last so short and we see far less of them (E x MinT=MinK). In the fractal paradigm the unification equation has been founded. As both masses and charges are 2 self-similar vortex of the space-time of each membrane. So wen you substitute for the bohr atom the mass of the proton and the speed of the electron in Gm=w2r3, you obtain a G=q force 10up to 40 times stronger than the gravitational force, as electromagnetism is. HENCE THIS PROVES MATHEMATICALLY WE CO-EXIST IN 2 FRACTAL MEMBRANES, the gravitation and electromagnetic membrane. In the fractal paradigm all forms have at least 2 scales. So we humans are made of fractal cells and black holes are as per Einstein frozen stars and its fractal self-similar parts are quark condensates (what lhc will do)… In the fractal paradigm the Higgs is just an antitop/top quark field. Etc. etc. The ether/CERN guys are very sure of their quantum thesis; that is why they give 0 risk. The fractal paradigm that evolves, solves and corrects the errors of the quantum paradigm gives 100% risk. Being humble i sued CERN FOR A 50% risk averaging their and our paradigm, even if we represent XXI c. science. They only represent power. They have censored our information. Scientific papers do not publish us so I wash my hands in front of so much arrogance and ignorance. You will see it on TV and then as 11/9 you will wonder how this could happen? Because there has not been a fair review an open debate Science has lost. Weapons have won. But don’t worry you will live eternal lives and in some fractal planet the Anglo world will properly treat this theme, the good guys will be heard and respected and the cheaters and industrial con-cerns closed down. Indeed, in a perfect Universe (as per Leibniz) at least in one planet physicists did evolve with thought experiments befored they devolved with machine ones. In that planet humans follow the rule of survival of any Space-time function of ‘existence’, exi=st, the self-similar logic function that defines what exists and what is irregular ad perishes. In verbal terms, maximal energy=force surives. Max.Information=Intelligence survives. But what survives most is the balance of energy and form, that maximizes e x I , when e=i. This is called beauty, classicism. The Universe is beautiful classic, it abhors freaks, excesses, ignorance, arrogance and stupidity, what CERN’s machines represent. The aether guys will not survive. It is my last warning from XXI century science to all my fractal co-humans of this super-organism we all live in called Gaia. Those people are clueless.

[Eric]

I agree with you John.
Jake, If not for the quest for knowledge, humans would all be sitting around campfires wearing animal skins and eating nuts.

[John]

Jake that is an extremely racist thing to say. I can defiantly tell you that your ignorance is astonishing and that people like you are defiantly part of the problem and not the solution.

[RB]

I agree that science takes us that much closer to understanding the mystery of "God," but I don't think it is necessarily dangerous. We wouldn't be doing it if we weren't supposed to be doing it, plus we have the capability and understanding. The key is to use science to make this world a better place, figuratively and physically. Science isn't the problem - humanity's egotism and fear are the problems.

[manzoor]

OK, so you might know what happened a billionth of a second after the Big Bang so many billion years ago, but non of us are going to be around in less than 100 years from now, should we not be looking into whats going to happen to us when we leave this world shortly!

[Jake]

It really hurts me to see that humans are still trying to play God. History is repeating itself over again. I never thought that I will be saying this but we all know we have dangerous people of all races but white people in general, not all white people have absolutely messed up this beautiful earth for there wicked ways. Ive travelled all over the world and 99.9% of indeginous peoples of the world, still dont trust white people and now I know why. You keep playing God trying to open up stargates so you can escape your judgement that is coming to this world.

[kuei]

Perhaps they will be ready to do their first full trial run on December 21, 2012.

[Al Jay]

Hey they thought the first test of the atomic bomb might set the atmosphere on fire too!

[manoj kumar sharma]

Now! Hope is alive, now civilization on one-step ahead to solve the problem of power, energy and speed, which is necessary to go beyond our precious world. Our dream come true when we go another universe with in short span to minutes.

[Patrick Moner]

Maybe it will break down again and they will get it back up and operating in the year 2012 and prove those darn Mayan's correct. Rock me Nostradamus.

[MP]

PJ, you should learn more about it so you are not so scared. Although this project is massive in terms of cost and scale, it is not nearly powerful enough to destroy earth as some have said. This project took the funding of 1/2 of the Western governments in the world, so it is not a few rogue scientists having their way with our lives. It is a cooperative effort led my some of the worlds best minds, who do understand scientific experiments, and have no intention of ending the world....

[PJ]

I dont know much about scientific experiments, but this sounds exceedingly dangerous. It also sounds like certain scientists are presuming the rest of the world doesnt care if they blow us to kingdom come. That sounds a tad unfair to me. So hopefully it will break down again. And stay broken.

[George Brewer]

Is that US billion or GB billion? Some of us Yanks do know the difference.

[Ian O'Neill]

@Vishal: Yes, you're totally right! Thanks for the correction :)

[Vishal Parakh]

Did the author mean 450 million eV instead of 450 billion, 450 billion is greater than the target 7 billion.

[Perraith]

Excellent, soon we mad scientists will be able to begin our evil plan to destroy the world using said technology in ways that it wasn't intended for but is entirely capable of doing. Mwahaha