CERN’s particle accelerator, theLarge Hadron Collider (LHC), has been put back into operation this weekend after 14 months of repairs as a result of a serious breakdown. Particle beams are once again circulating in the world’s most powerful particle accelerator.
“The LHC is now a machine that we understand better than a year ago,” said Steve Myers of CERN. “We have learned from our experience; this is how progress works” The first time a beam was circulated through the LHC was on September 10, 2008. However, just nine days later a power failure in one of the connections between thesuperconducting magnetscaused a ton of liquid helium to spill into the tunnel. After more than 12 months of work, on October 8, 2009 the temperature of 1.9 degrees Kelvin or -271 degrees Celsius was recovered inside the 27-kilometer circular tunnel that forms the accelerator. On October 23, particles were injected, but did not set in motion. This weekend the beams have started to circulate. The next step will be to produce low-energy collisions, probably within a week.
As announced by the general director of theCERNRolf-Dieter Heuer, the collider is expected to operate at full capacity in early 2010. When this happens, the LCH will produce hundreds of millions of frontal collisions of particles at a speed close to light, trying torecreate the moments after the Big Bang.
