The Large Hadron Collider Restarts After 3 Years: Searching for the “Fifth Force of Nature”

On April 22, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) restarted after three years of maintenance and upgrades. Two proton beams with an injected energy of 450 GeV were launched in a 27-kilometer-long tunnel.

The LHC works by smashing atoms into pieces, separating them, looking for subatomic particles in them, and watching how the subatomic particles interact.

In 2019, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) shut down the Large Hadron Collider for repairs and upgrades to improve the sensitivity of the instrument and make it better at its mission.

State of the Large Hadron Collider Experiments

This will allow researchers to look inside atoms at higher resolutions — capturing data 30 million times per second.

Launching the 27-kilometer-long collider ring tunnel is a complex process that requires everything to work in perfect harmony “like an orchestra”, especially in the special period affected by the new crown epidemic.

Rende Steerenberg, who runs the LHC’s control room, explained that it’s not a simple push of a button, it’s stressful and jittery, and there are many potential glitches. factors such as obstacles in the tunnel and problems with magnets.

Particle physicists hope that upgrading the LHC will help discover a new fundamental force of nature, a new force in addition to the four (gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak forces), and Help explain cosmic mysteries.

According to the researchers,Another hope is that restarting the LHC will help in the search for mysterious dark matter.

Dark matter is the invisible matter of the universe that makes up most of the known universe.

Although the LHC has restarted, researchers still face potential threats, including: possible obstacles in the tunnel, as the LHC’s 8 components have now been cooled to 1.9 Kelvin The temperature (equivalent to minus 271 degrees Celsius) easily causes the material to shrink and deform.

Meanwhile, using thousands of magnets to concentrate billions of particles in a tight beam of protons in the LHC tunnel is more difficult.

The LHC works a bit like an “orchestral instrument,” Sternberg said. To make sure the beam of protons travels through the tunnel, all the magnets have to do the right thing at the right time.

On April 22, the particles passed through the 27-kilometer ring tunnel of the collider for the first time since December 2018, however, it will take 6-8 weeks for the LHC to reach full speed, at which point point proton collisions will occur again Appear.

The part of the muon system of the beauty quark experiment

Rhodri Jones, director of CERN’s proton beam department, said: “These proton beams circulate with injected energy and contain relatively small numbers of protons, and high-intensity, high-energy collisions are still months away. But the first proton beam release represents the successful restart of the LHC after a long, arduous, closed-off effort by scientists.”

The LHC experiments observed by CERN researchers in 2010-2013 proved the existence of the long-sought Higgs boson, as well as the energy field connected to the Higgs boson, which scientists believe is the particle Crucial to the birth of the universe after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

However, particle physicists still have many unsolved mysteries to discover, and the latest upgrade to the Large Hadron Collider will look deeper than ever into the hidden quantum realm. At the same time, by understanding dark matter, it may also help to discover more secrets of the universe.

Dark matter in the universe is thought to be 5 times larger than ordinary matter, but it does not absorb, reflect and emit light. So far, scientists have not yet explored conclusive evidence for the existence of dark matter. “We’re going to drastically increase the number of particle collisions, and thus the likelihood of new discoveries,” Sternberg said. “The LHC is currently operational and will shut down again in 2025-2027.”

It is reported that on September 10, 2008, the Large Hadron Collider was put into use for the first time, and despite some glitches, the discoveries it obtained were all in line with the Standard Model, which is the dominant theory of particle physics and was developed in the 1970s. up, but the theory is imperfect and fails to explain some aspects of physics. Data collected at the Large Hadron Collider shows that particles behave in ways that the Standard Model cannot explain, nor can the Standard Model explain the existence of dark matter.

In early 2021, scientists used the Large Hadron Collider to conduct a particle decay experiment called “beauty quark”, which showed that the frequency of “beauty quark” particles decaying into muons was 15% lower than predicted.

This suggests that there is an unknown factor at play in the universe,Many suspect that this is a new forcethe team plans to experiment again with more sensitive equipment at the improved LHC.

Most physicists believe that there must be more cosmic elements waiting to be discovered, and a fundamental particle called the “beauty quark” is of great interest to scientists, and they may provide important clues that there may be other components of the universe.

The beauty quark, also known as the bottom quark. There are six types of quarks: up quark (u), down quark (d), strange quark (s), charm quark (c), bottom (quark b), and top quark

Dr Mitesh Patel, a particle physicist at Imperial College London, UK, who led the experiment, said: “If we can confirm this, it will be a revolution that has never been seen before, for sure Major scientific discovery in our lifetime!”

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