IN this file photo, members of the media receive a briefing next to the Compact Muon Solenoid detector assembly in a tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Cessy, France.—AFP
IN this file photo, members of the media receive a briefing next to the Compact Muon Solenoid detector assembly in a tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Cessy, France.—AFP

PARIS: Ten years after it discovered the Higgs boson, the Large Hadron Collider is about to start smashing protons together at unprecedented energy levels in its quest to reveal more secrets about how the universe works.

The world’s largest and most powerful particle collider started back up in April after a three-year break for upgr­a­des in preparation for its third run.

From Tuesday it will run around the clock for nearly four years at a record energy of 13.6 trillion electronvolts, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced at a press briefing last week.

It will send two beams of protons — particles in the nucleus of an atom — in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light around a 27-kilometre (17-mile) ring buried 100 metres under the Swiss-French border.

World’s most powerful collider will send two beams of protons in opposite directions at close to light speed

The resulting collisions will be reco­rded and analysed by thousands of scientists as part of a raft of experiments, including ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb, which will use the enhanced power to probe dark matter, dark ene­r­gy and other fundamental mysteries.

“We aim to be delivering 1.6 billion proton-proton collisions per second” for the ATLAS and CMS experiments, CERN’s head of accelerators and technology Mike Lamont said.

This time around the proton beams will be narrowed to less than 10 microns — a human hair is around 70 microns thick — to increase the collision rate, he added.

The new energy rate will allow them to further investigate the Higgs boson, which the Large Hadron Collider first observed on July 4, 2012.

The discovery revolutionised physics in part because the boson fit within the Standard Model — the mainstream theory of all the fundamental particles that make up matter and the forces that govern them.

However, several recent findings have raised questions about the Standard Model, and the newly upgraded collider will look at the Higgs boson in more depth.

“The Higgs boson is related to some of the most profound open questions in fundamental physics today,” said CERN director-general Fabiola Gianotti, who first announced the boson’s discovery a decade ago.

Compared to the collider’s first run that discovered the boson, this time around there will be 20 times more collisions. “This is a significant increase, paving the way for new discoveries,” Lamont said.

Joachim Mnich, CERN’s head of rese­arch and computing, said there was still much more to learn about the boson. “Is the Higgs boson really a fundamental particle or is it a composite?” he asked.

“Is it the only Higgs-like particle that exists — or are there others?”

Past experiments have determined the mass of the Higgs boson, as well as more than 60 composite particles predicted by the Standard Model, such as the tetraquark.

But Gian Giudice, head of CERN’s theoretical physics department, said observing particles is only part of the job. “Particle physics does not simply want to understand the how — our goal is to understand the why,” he said.

Among the Large Hadron Collider’s nine experiments is ALICE, which probes the matter that existed in the first 10 microseconds after the Big Bang, and LHCf, which uses the collisions to simulate cosmic rays.

After this run, the collider will come back in 2029 as the High-Luminosity LHC, increasing the number of detectable events by a factor of 10.

Beyond that, the scientists are planning a Future Circular Collider — a 100km ring that aims to reach energies of a whopping 100 trillion electronvolts. But for now, physicists are keenly awaiting results from the Large Hadron Collider’s third run. “A new physics season is starting,” CERN said.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2022

Opinion

Editorial

Defining extremism
Updated 18 Mar, 2024

Defining extremism

Redefining extremism may well be the first step to clamping down on advocacy for Palestine.
Climate in focus
18 Mar, 2024

Climate in focus

IN a welcome order by the Supreme Court, the new government has been tasked with providing a report on actions taken...
Growing rabies concern
18 Mar, 2024

Growing rabies concern

DOG-BITE is an old problem in Pakistan. Amid a surfeit of public health challenges, rabies now seems poised to ...
Provincial share
Updated 17 Mar, 2024

Provincial share

PPP has aptly advised Centre to worry about improving its tax collection rather than eying provinces’ share of tax revenues.
X-communication
17 Mar, 2024

X-communication

IT has now been a month since Pakistani authorities decided that the country must be cut off from one of the...
Stateless humanity
17 Mar, 2024

Stateless humanity

THE endless hostility between India and Pakistan has reduced prisoners to mere statistics. Although the two ...