CERN’s Large Hadron Collider launches for third time to unlock more mysteries of space

Now physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) on the Swiss-French border are restarting the collider. With the aim of further understanding the mysteries of the Higgs boson, other subatomic particles and dark matter – matter that is invisible and invisible because it does not absorb, reflect or emit any light.

The Large Hadron Collider, a ring 27 kilometers (16.7 miles) in circumference — located deep in the Alps — contains superconducting magnets cooled to -271.3°C (-456 F), colder than space. It works by knocking tiny particles together to allow scientists to observe them and see what’s inside.

CERN scientists on Tuesday they will start collecting data for their experimentsand Hadron the Great The collider will operate around the clock for almost four years. this A third run for the massive machine, with greater accuracy and discovery potential than ever before, thanks to improved data reading and sampling systems, as well as new detector systems and computing infrastructure.

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“When conducting research, we hope to find something unexpected, a surprise. That would be the best result. But of course, the answer is in the hands of nature, and it depends on how nature answers the open questions in fundamental physics.” CEO Fabiola Gianotti said.

“We are looking for answers to questions about dark matter, questions about why the Higgs boson is so light, and many other open questions.”

Understanding the Higgs boson

Physicists Francois Englert and Peter Higgs first proposed the existence of the Higgs boson in the 1960s. The Standard Model of Physics reveals the fundamentals of the interaction of elementary particles and forces in the universe. But the theory failed to explain how particles actually get their mass. Particles, or bits of matter, vary in size and can be larger or smaller than atoms. For example, electrons, protons, and neutrons are the subatomic particles that make up an atom. Scientists now They believe that the Higgs boson is the particle that gives all matter its mass.

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In 2013, a year after the discovery of the particle, Englert and Higgs received the Nobel Prize for his visionary predictions. But there is still much that is unknown about the Higgs boson, and unlocking its secrets could help scientists understand the universe at its smallest scales and some of the biggest mysteries in space.

Opened in 2008, the Large Hadron Collider is the only one in the world. Higgs boson can be produced and studied in detail. Third run It went live at 10:47 a.m. ET on Tuesday.

In the latest round of experiments, CERN scientists will study the properties of matter under extreme temperatures and densities, and look for explanations. either direct searches for dark matter and other new phenomena, or indirectly – through precise measurements of the properties of known particles.

“Although all the results so far are consistent with the Standard Model, there is still room for more new phenomena than predicted by this theory,” CERN theorist Michelangelo Mangano said. in a news release.

Dark matter is thought to make up most of matter universe and was previously discovered by its ability to create gravitational distortions in space.

“The Higgs boson itself may point to new phenomena, including those that may be responsible for dark matter in the universe,” said Luca Malgeri, spokesman for the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid), one of the four major Large Hadron Collider experiments. built around a giant electromagnet.