Atlas detector, Cern
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The elusive Higgs-Boson particle is proving to be ghost-like, says Cern, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva. Results from Cern’s Atlas and CMS projects were presented at the biannual Lepton-Photon conference in Mumbai, India 22 August.
Results of these collaborative projects using the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) “show that the elusive Higgs particle, if it exists, is running out of places to hide. Proving or disproving the existence the Higgs-Boson, which was postulated in the 1960s as part of a mechanism that would confer mass on fundamental particles, is among the main goals of the LHC scientific programme,” the group says in a press release.
Higg’s boson, success of particle accelerator give LHC an extra year
Excitement at Cern as LHC ramps up (photo 2010, Cern)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will remain in operation until the end of 2012, rather than the end of 2011 as earlier announced, the European Organization for Nuclear Research says, citing the strong success of the LHC in its first year of operation.
“With the LHC running so well in 2010, and further improvements in performance expected, there’s a real chance that exciting new physics may be within our sights by the end of the year,” Cern’s research director, Sergio Bertolucci, said in a statement issued Monday 31 January.
“For example, if nature is kind to us and the lightest supersymmetric particle, or the Higgs boson, is within reach of the LHC’s current energy, the data we expect to collect by the end of 2012 will put them within our grasp.”
Cern earlier caused a stir in the science community when it announced that it would run the LHC for 18-24 months, then shut down, for at least a year, the massive system that runs experiments using a 27km circular tunnel that runs 100m under Geneva and neighbouring France.
The shutdown will be necessary to prepare the LHC to run at its full design energy of 7 TeV.
Asacusa experiment, Cern, July 2009 (photo, Cern)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The mystery of what ever happened to antimatter, which has long puzzled scientists, has moved a step closer to being solved. Researchers involved in the Asacusa experiment at Cern (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva have succeeded in producing significant numbers of antihydrogen atoms in flight.
Antimatter is the opposite of matter, which is the material that makes up our world. Cern notes in a statement that “matter and its counterpart are identical except for opposite charge, and they annihilate when they meet. At the Big Bang, matter and antimatter should have been produced in equal amounts. However, we know that our world is made up of matter: antimatter seems to have disappeared. To find out what has happened to it, scientists employ a range of methods to investigate whether a tiny difference in the properties of matter and antimatter could point towards an explanation.”
One of these is a Cern-developed trap called Cusp that uses a combination of magnetic fields to bring antiprotons and positrons together. They form antihydrogen atoms, referred to by Cern as “this rarest of atoms”.
Antimatter trapped and stored - Photo Cern
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One of the universe’s open questions may be a step closer to being answered thanks to over 30 atoms of antihydrogen that have been trapped and stored by scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, Cern.
This opens the path to new ways of making detailed measurements of antihydrogen, Cern notes in a written statement 18 November. It will allow scientists to compare matter and antimatter, the latter being what annihilates ordinary matter in a single explosive flash of energy.
The finding is related to the re-creation of the mini Big Bang at Cern in early November.
“At the Big Bang, matter and antimatter should have been produced in equal amounts. However, we know that our world is made up of matter: antimatter seems to have disappeared,” says Cern. Investigating a “tiny difference in the properties of matter and antimatter could point towards an explanation of what happened.”
Rhythm of life to change at Cern (photo: Cern team watching low energy first collisions 16 December 2009 at 04:00)
Update 22:50 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The annual shutdown of accelerators at Cern, long a part of the rhythm of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, are coming to an end, with the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) gearing up. The organization will instead continue to operate the LHC for 18-24 months, then close for a longer period, possibly a year, to accommodate the LHC’s needs at a higher energy, Cern said 10 March, confirming information it provided in February, that the LHC would shut down in 2011.
The LHC is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles: the fundamental building blocks of all things.
Control room at Cern, first beam in September 2008
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at Cern could be up and running by August, if all goes according to plan. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) said Thursday 30 April that it has taken an important step in completing repairs to the LHC. The massive structure was damaged 19 September 2008, just days after Cern turned on the switch to the machine that is designed to answer questions about the very first instants after the Big Bang.
