The Large Hadron Collider is poised to begin bashing protons together at record energy rates in its attempt to unveil additional mysteries about how the cosmos works ten years after it found the Higgs boson.
A three-year hiatus to modernize the particle collider in anticipation of its third run resulted in a reopening in April. In a press conference, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) revealed that the machine would run nonstop for almost four years at the unprecedented energy of 13.6 trillion electronvolts.
To accomplish this feat, a 27-kilometer ring dug 100 meters under the Swiss-French border will be traversed by two beams of protons—particles in the nucleus of an atom.
Researchers from a wide range of experiments will utilize the increased capacity to investigate the mysteries of dark matter and the universe’s other basic mysteries such as the Higgs boson and the Higgs boson. Recently, CERN also revealed the discovery of three new particles.
At 1.6 billion proton-proton collisions a second, scientists hope to achieve their goal. A human hair is around 70 microns thick, therefore the proton beam width will be reduced to less than 10 microns this time around to boost the collision rate. Using the increased power, they’ll be able to dig further into the Higgs boson, which the Large Hadron Collider discovered years ago.
One of the primary reasons for the boson’s revolutionary impact on physics is that it is consistent with the Standard Model, the accepted explanation for the nature of all basic particles in matter and the fundamental forces that control them.
Although recent results have questioned the Standard Model, a freshly improved collider will examine the Higgs boson in more detail.
An even more significant finding may be in the works. If recent oddities found in their data are the result of a fluke or an indication of a fifth force of the universe, scientists hope this latest run of the collider will help them answer that question.
