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The Large Hadron ColliderThe worlds largest particle
accelerator or doomsday device?
The basics
•Built by CERN theEuropean Organization forNuclear Research•Located 50-175 km belowFranco Swiss border nearGeneva.•Multi nation collaborationwith over 10,000 scientistand engineers from over100 different countries.•It will accelerate protonsand lead ions at99.9999991% C•Theoretically it shouldrecreate the conditionsseen right after the bigbang.
The Structure
The LHC uses thousandsof magnets ranging fromdipoles to quad poles andetc to propel the protonand focus the particles.The magnets will becooled usingapproximately 96 tons ofhelium.The results from thecollisions will be recordedat several differentexperiments along the17mile loop. (ATLAS,CMS, ALICE, LHCb, LHCf,and TOTEM,)
The Experiments
•ALICE (A Large IonCollider Experiment) isspecialized in analyzinglead-ion collision.•ATLAS (A Toroidal LHCApparatus) will beoperating in hopes toexpand our currentknowledge in physics.(super symmetry, extradimensions, and the Higgsboson)•CMS (Compact MuonSolenoid) will be searchingfor the same things asATLAS but using adifferent design and will befurther exploring theterascale.
•LHCb (Large HadronCollider- Beauty) plans tostudy the asymmetry inmatter and anti-matter in Bmesons containing the b-quark.•LHCf (Large HadronCollider-forward) is beingworked on by 21 studentsand professors its resultswill give us the mostaccurate estimate of theenergy in ultra high-energycosmic rays.•TOTEM (Total Crosssection, Electric Scattering,and DiffractionDissociation) will usedetectors to measure thesize of a proton to anunprecedented accuracy.
So what are we hoping todiscover?
• Are there undiscovered principles innature?
• How can we solve the mystery of darkmatter?
• Are there extra dimensions?• What is dark matter?• How did the universe come to be?
The Controversy
• Some of the proposed issues concerningthe LHC are:
• MBH’s (Micro-Black Holes)• Strangelets• Vacuum bubbles• Magnetic monopoles.
MBH’s• Similar to the Primordial Black Holes created in
the high-density environment of the early universe(or big bang).
• Hawking Radiation• Cosmic Rays less then those that hit the earth• "The world will not come to an end when the LHC
turns on. The LHC is absolutely safe. ... Collisionsreleasing greater energy occur millions of times aday in the earth's atmosphere and nothing terriblehappens." (Prof. Steven Hawking, LucasianProfessor of Mathematics, Cambridge University)
MBH’s• Similar to the Primordial Black Holes created in
the high-density environment of the early universe(or big bang).
• Hawking Radiation• Cosmic Rays less then those that hit the earth• "The world will not come to an end when the LHC
turns on. The LHC is absolutely safe. ... Collisionsreleasing greater energy occur millions of times aday in the earth's atmosphere and nothing terriblehappens." (Prof. Steven Hawking, LucasianProfessor of Mathematics, Cambridge University)
Strangelets• A hypothetical object consisting of a bound
state of roughly equal numbers of up, down,and strange quarks.
• Is the Earth going to be turned into a lump ofStrange matter if the Strangelets touchordinary matter?
•NO! It would havehappened at the RHIC
Strangelets• A hypothetical object consisting of a bound
state of roughly equal numbers of up, down,and strange quarks.
• Is the Earth going to be turned into a lump ofStrange matter if the Strangelets touchordinary matter?
•NO! It would havehappened at the RHIC
Vacuum Bubbles and MagneticMonopoles
• Have we seen any in our atmosphere?
Pros and Cons
• Both the possibilities and the problemsare theoretical but science leans moretowards the possibilities than theproblems and where would we be today ifwe didn’t take chances in science andtechnology.
Current Activity
• Currently not running after a helium leakin the magnets.
• Due to start again soon• On the first activation in front of a media
storm the computers were hacked byoutside sources.
Pictures were provided by
• US/LHC (National Science Foundationand US Department of Energy)
• CERN• LHC webmaster
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