The large hadron collider, shown in its tunnel at CERN near Geneva, has been ramped up for new particle experiments.Martial Trezzini/The Associated Press
Operators of the world's largest atom smasher yesterday ramped up their massive machine to three times the energy ever previously achieved, in the run-up to experiments probing the secrets of the universe.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, said beams of protons circulated at 3.5 trillion electron volts in both directions around the 27-kilometre tunnel housing the Large Hadron Collider under the Swiss-French border at Geneva.
The next major development is expected in a few days when CERN starts colliding the beams in a new round of research to examine the tiniest particles and forces within the atom in hopes of finding out more about the composition of matter.
The collider in December had already eclipsed the record of the next most powerful machine, the Tevatron at Fermilab outside Chicago, which has been running just shy of one trillion electron volts, or TeV. One electron volt is the equivalent to the energy of motion achieved by a flying mosquito.
The additional energy in Geneva is expected to reveal even more about the unanswered questions of particle physics, such as the nature of dark energy and dark matter. Scientists hope also to approach on a tiny scale what happened in the first split seconds after the Big Bang, which they theorize was the creation of the universe some 14 billion years ago.
CERN has reported a series of successes since the collider was restarted last year after 14 months of repairs and improvements after a spectacular failure when scientists initially tried to get the machine going.
CERN improved the machine during a 10-week winter shutdown to be able to operate at the higher energy.
"Getting the beams to 3.5 TeV is testimony to the soundness of the LHC's overall design, and the improvements we've made since the breakdown in September, 2008," said Steve Myers, CERN's director for accelerators and technology.
The Associated Press