World’s largest particle collider is now even more powerful

After a three-year break, the Large Hadron Collider is back in action. The work can now be resumed by the accelerator.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) built the 17-mile tunnel under the border of France and Switzerland that houses the Large Calibrated particle collider. It shot two beams of protons at each other with 450 billion electronvolts.

The beams contained a relatively small number of protons and were high in intensity. The first beams represent the successful restart of the accelerator after a long shutdown.

The three year maintenance period, called Long Shutdown or LS2, began in December of last year and included improvements to the accelerators which should allow even higher energy beams to be produced, of up to 6.8 TeV per beam. The electrical system has been improved and some of the magnets have been replaced.

The improvements to the LHC will allow it to work at higher energies and perform more frequent collisions. The Standard Model of physics describes three of the four fundamental forces and the researchers hope this will allow them to learn more about them.

The machines and facilities underwent major upgrades during the second long shutdown.

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