Thomas Unise
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, is scheduled for a major shutdown starting in June to undergo significant upgrades that will enhance its research capabilities tenfold.
The Upgrade Plan
The 16-mile underground tunnel near the Swiss-French border will be transformed into a high-luminosity LHC, capable of conducting ten times more particle collisions than it currently can. This ambitious project will take approximately five years to complete, with operations expected to resume in mid-2030.
Despite the lengthy downtime, CERN’s new director general Mark Thomson assures that physics research won’t come to a halt. “The machine is running brilliantly and we’re recording huge amounts of data,” Thomson told The Guardian, adding that “physics results will keep on coming” during the upgrade period.
LHC’s Legacy and Future
Since its inception, the LHC has made groundbreaking contributions to particle physics, most notably the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson—an elementary particle responsible for giving mass to other particles. This discovery stands as one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs in modern physics.
While the upgrade is underway, CERN is simultaneously planning for the LHC’s eventual successor. The leading candidate is the Future Circular Collider (FCC), a massive 56-mile circumference accelerator that would dwarf the current LHC. The FCC’s first stage, designed to collide electrons and positrons, could be operational by the late 2040s, with a second stage following in the 2070s.
Challenges and Vision
The proposed FCC faces significant hurdles, primarily its estimated $19 billion price tag—too expensive for CERN to fund independently. Additionally, some scientists question whether large particle accelerators remain the most effective approach for investigating fundamental questions about dark matter and dark energy.
Despite these challenges, Thomson remains optimistic about the future of particle physics research: “We’ve not got to the point where we have stopped making discoveries and the FCC is the natural progression. Our goal is to understand the universe at its most fundamental level. And this is absolutely not the time to give up.”
Conclusion
While the LHC’s temporary shutdown represents a significant pause in active experimentation, it promises to deliver enhanced capabilities that will power the next generation of physics discoveries. Meanwhile, the wealth of existing data will keep scientists busy analyzing results that could further expand our understanding of the universe’s fundamental properties.
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