Largest accelerator in the world particles will be even more efficient – TVI24

The European Organization for Nuclear Research / CERN expects the largest and most powerful particle accelerator the world origine, this year, about six times more data than in 2015.

“the LHC [the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world] runs a marvel We now have an ambitious goal for 2016:. get about six times more data than in 2015 “ , said on Monday the director of accelerators and technology at CERN, Frédérick Bordry, quoted in a statement issued by the organization.

With the statement issued on Monday, CERN, the organization of which Portugal is a member, marks the beginning of the season 2016 of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC, its acronym in English).

25 March, the accelerator resumed operation after the usual annual winter break, but on 29 April, stopped again:. the entry of a mongoose in a transformer caused a short circuit and a fault

“the start of the LHC always causes great excitement. Thanks to the 2016 data, the experiments may make more precise measurements of the Higgs boson [elementary particle confirmed by accelerator in 2012] and other particles and other phenomena already known, and to explore new physics with a greater potential for discovery “ , said, quoted in the same statement, the director general of CERN, Fabiola Gianotti, who took office in January.

the accelerator operators can now increase the intensity of the particle beam so that the machine can produce a greater number of collisions – up billion per second

the beams consist of a number of ‘bundles’ of particles each containing beam. about a hundred billion protons circulating in the accelerator at near the speed of light.

the various “packages” of particles go in opposite directions and intersect at the center of experiences.

last year, the LHC operators set the number of ‘packages’ of protons in 2244 beam, spaced 25 nanoseconds (a nanosecond is one thousand millionth of a second).

in 2016 for the second consecutive year, the LHC operates at a 13 trillion collision energy electron-volt (TeV), almost twice the energy previously used.

Higgs boson “key” of the fundamental structure of matter, was the missing piece to the “jigsaw puzzle” that is the Model-Standard, the theory that describes the fundamental particles of matter and the forces that govern it.

the theory does not explain, however, why nature prefers matter to antimatter and what is made dark matter, which is a universe room and manifests itself through the gravitational effects it exerts on visible matter such as galaxies and stars.

according to CERN, the “huge amounts of data that will be produced during the time of 2016 LHC will allow scientists to study these questions, and many others, deepen Model- standard and find possibly contents of a new physics. “

The LHC is a circular tunnel 27 kilometers, located underground on the Franco-Swiss border. His second exploration phase will run until 2018. The following year, it is expected a new technical stop, so that the power of the accelerator can be further increased.

In the data analysis are involved Portuguese researchers participating in several CERN projects, which Portugal joined 30 years ago.