ATS
After more than three years of maintenance and improvement work, the largest research machine in the world is back in service. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) will restart its Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The first two beams of particles must be sent Friday in opposite directions through the underground ring of 27 kilometers in circumference located astride the Franco-Swiss border in Ain, at the gates of Geneva.
The suspension of the most powerful accelerator in the world, stopped since 2019, had been extended due to the pandemic. Its restart must be spread over several phases.
It will take six to eight weeks for the machine to run at full speed, and only then can proton collisions once more take place which should reveal knowledge regarding the fundamental laws of the universe.
The particle accelerator makes it possible to simulate the time of the creation of the universe, approximately 14 billion years ago. During collisions, researchers observe decay processes and gain insight into the smallest components of matter, elementary particles.
Among other things, the Higgs boson, theoretically described 40 years earlier, was detected for the first time at CERN in 2012. It contributes to elementary particles having mass.
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