Meet Joe Incandela, Higgs boson -- or 'God Particle' -- detective Physicist Joe Incandela announced the discovery of the Higgs boson on July 4, 2012. The mosaic of photos of colleagues spells "CMS," which stands for Compact Muon Solenoid. CMS is one of the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider that detected the particle. The Large Hadron Collider is located at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, near Geneva, Switzerland. The Higgs boson, the elusive particle that scientists had hoped to find for decades, helps explain why matter has mass. The ATLAS experiment, seen here in 2011, is about two stories taller than CMS. Much of three stories of electronics at CMS are involved in making split-second decisions about what data to keep and what to discard. A technician works on the CMS experiment. Joe Incandela, the spokesperson for CMS, says that about 4,000 scientists collaborate on the experiment. Physicists in the CMS control room. Evaldas Juska, an engineer, is working on computers involved with CMS. Exploring the universe at CERN LHCb
What is the God particle? | Angels & Demons - The science behind the story The term 'The God particle' was coined by the physicist Leon Lederman in his 1993 popular science book, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? The particle that the book title refers to is the 'Higgs boson'. The particle we now call the Higgs boson has never been observed. What is the Higgs boson? The theories and discoveries of thousands of physicists over the past century have resulted in a remarkable insight into the fundamental structure of matter: everything in the Universe is found to be made from twelve basic building blocks called fundamental particles, governed by four fundamental forces. Our best understanding of how these twelve particles and three of the forces are related to each other is encapsulated in the Standard Model of particles and forces. Peter Higgs at CERN in April 2008. However, in order for this unification to work mathematically, it requires that force-carrying particles have no mass. What does the Higgs boson have to do with God?
'God particle' unveiled? Super-collider scientists declare victory | Technology GENEVA (AP) — To cheers and standing ovations, scientists at the world's biggest atom smasher claimed the discovery of a new subatomic particle Wednesday, calling it "consistent" with the long-sought Higgs boson — popularly known as the "God particle" — that helps explain what gives all matter in the universe size and shape. "We have now found the missing cornerstone of particle physics," Rolf Heuer, director of the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), told scientists. He said the newly discovered subatomic particle is a boson, but he stopped just shy of claiming outright that it is the Higgs boson itself — an extremely fine distinction. "As a layman, I think we did it," he told the elated crowd. "We have a discovery. We have observed a new particle that is consistent with a Higgs boson." The Higgs boson, which until now has been a theoretical particle, is seen as the key to understanding why matter has mass, which combines with gravity to give an object weight. "Thanks, nature!"
Inside the Large Hadron Collider: How IT powers the greatest experiment in history At the press of a button, the largest machine ever made by humans will come alive. Buried around 100m underground, near Geneva, Switzerland, the Large Hadron Collider is about to make history once again when it restarts in a few weeks time. Thousands of researchers are at work in the center to discover how the world was made and what happened right after the Big Bang. "When I arrived at CERN [European Organization for Nuclear Research], I immediately felt that it was science heaven," Alberto Pace, IT data and storage services group leader, told ZDNet. Pace and his team get to be part of the most exciting scientific experiment in history, the one that discovered the Higgs boson. What exactly is the Higgs boson, and what does it do? All the experiments happen in a circular underground tunnel which is 27km long and has a depth which ranges from 50m to 175m below ground. How data travels Hundreds of millions of particle collisions take place every second, at the heart of LHC's detectors.
CERN eyes new giant particle collider Europe's physics lab CERN said Thursday it was eyeing plans for a circular particle collider that would be seven times more powerful than the facility which discovered the famous "God particle." "The time has come to look even further ahead," the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced. In 2012, CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC)—a giant lab housed in a 27-kilometre (17-mile) tunnel straddling the French-Swiss border—identified what is believed to be the Higgs boson, the long-sought maker of mass theorised in the 1960s. The facility flushed out the so-called God particle by crashing proton beams at velocities near the speed of light. It went offline a year ago for an 18-month overhaul. The LHC, completed in 2008, has "at least 20 more years" of life in it, the agency said. However, the long time needed to build its successor—the LHC took a quarter of a century—means that planning should start now. The winner will be "a worthy successor to the LHC," CERN said.
Physicists Proposing New U.S. Linear Particle Collider Physicists Proposing New U.S. Linear Particle Collider High-energy physicists from across the United States will gather at The Johns Hopkins University March 19-21 to consider and refine a proposal for a major new U.S. particle collider. Researchers coming to the Hopkins meeting are advocates of a proposal known as the Electron-Positron Linear Collider. Many believe such a collider could help confirm a theory known as supersymmetry, resolving many of the unanswered questions in their present understanding of elementary particles and the forces that act on them American scientists also feel an American commitment to build the proposed collider could help maintain the United States' leadership role in particle physics, a status many think the United States began to relinquish when it pulled the plug on the Superconducting Supercollider in the early 1990s. "The U.S. won't be at the energy frontier then, and we have to ask ourselves, 'What does that mean?' Related websites: Morris Swartz
Reigning in chaos in particle colliders yields big results -- ScienceDaily When beams with trillions of particles go zipping around at near light speed, there's bound to be some chaos. Limiting that chaos in particle colliders is crucial for the groundbreaking results such experiments are designed to deliver. In a special focus issue of the journal Chaos, from AIP Publishing, a physicist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) details an important method of detecting and correcting unwanted chaotic behavior in particle colliders. The aim of the focus issue is to review, comprehensively, the theory and implementation of existing methods of chaos detection and predictability -- as well as to report recent applications of these techniques to different scientific fields. Chaos has long bedeviled physicists trying to describe the precise motions of interacting objects. In these machines, powerful electric and magnetic fields accelerate and guide beams containing trillions of particles. The method has already born fruit.
New subatomic particle found at super-collider - Technology & science - Science GENEVA — European researchers say they have discovered a new subatomic particle that helps confirm our knowledge about how quarks bind — one of the basic forces in the shaping of matter. The CERN physics research center said Friday that the particle was discovered at the Compact Muon Solenoid, one of the Large Hadron Collider's two main general-purpose detectors, in collaboration with the University of Zurich. Joe Incandela, the physicist in charge of the experiment involved with the discovery, told The Associated Press that the particle was predicted long ago, but finding it was "really kind of a classic tour de force of experimental work." The particle, known as an excited neutral Xi-b baryon, could not be detected directly because it was too unstable. The Xi-b particle, like other baryons such as protons and neutrons, is made up of three quarks. Another experimental group at the LHC, using the ATLAS detector, reported its first new particle last year. More about the particle quest:
Fermilab | Tevatron | Accelerator The Tevatron was the second most powerful particle accelerator in the world before it shut down on Sept. 29, 2011. It accelerated beams of protons and antiprotons to 99.999954 percent of the speed of light around a four-mile circumference. The two beams collided at the centers of two 5,000-ton detectors positioned around the beam pipe at two different locations. Scientists at Fermilab also study particle collisions by directing beams into stationary targets to produce neutrino beams. The Tevatron tunnel is buried 25 feet belowground, underneath an earthen berm. The Tevatron had more than 1,000 superconducting magnets, which produced much stronger magnetic fields than conventional magnets. Components Upper Magnets: The upper section of magnets operated at room temperature. Lower Magnets: The lower section of magnets was part of the Tevatron Collider. Beam pipes: Particles traveled through a vacuum pipe located inside a string of magnets. The Accelerator Chain
China Will Build Largest Super Particle Collider | Guardian Liberty Voice China has announced it will build the largest super particle collider by 2028. The world was amazed at the development of the Large Hadron Collider built at CERN in 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland but that particle collider will be considered small after China builds the super particle collider it has planned. China has been quietly paving the way for the creation of this super particle accelerator and if it is successful will become a leading country in particle physics, overtaking Europe and the U.S. as leaders in physics. Scientists at the Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing are working with physicists from around the world to build this “Higgs boson factory” by 2028. The Higgs boson is an atomic particle that has been of great interest in high energy physics and was discovered at CERN on July 4, 2012. The current Large Hadron Collider at CERN has been called a “sledgehammer” in particle physics in that the protons are smashed together at high energies to observe what emerges.
The accelerator complex The accelerator complex at CERN is a succession of machines that accelerate particles to increasingly higher energies. Each machine boosts the energy of a beam of particles, before injecting the beam into the next machine in the sequence. In the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – the last element in this chain – particle beams are accelerated up to the record energy of 4 TeV per beam. Most of the other accelerators in the chain have their own experimental halls where beams are used for experiments at lower energies. The proton source is a simple bottle of hydrogen gas. An electric field is used to strip hydrogen atoms of their electrons to yield protons. The protons are finally transferred to the two beam pipes of the LHC. The accelerator complex includes the Antiproton Decelerator and the Online Isotope Mass Separator (ISOLDE) facility, and feeds the CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso (CNGS) project and the Compact Linear Collider test area, as well as the neutron time-of-flight facility (nTOF).
The Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It first started up on 10 September 2008, and remains the latest addition to CERN’s accelerator complex. The LHC consists of a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way. Inside the accelerator, two high-energy particle beams travel at close to the speed of light before they are made to collide. The beams travel in opposite directions in separate beam pipes – two tubes kept at ultrahigh vacuum. Thousands of magnets of different varieties and sizes are used to direct the beams around the accelerator. All the controls for the accelerator, its services and technical infrastructure are housed under one roof at the CERN Control Centre. How many kilometres of cables are there on the LHC? Download the LHC guide [PDF] CERN takes safety very seriously. Read about the safety of the LHC