First Beam for the Large Hadron Collider

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Early this morning 4,000 miles away, scientists at CERN for the first time sent a beam of protons all the way around the 17-mile ring of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), an internationally built particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France. This is an important milestone for Brookhaven and numerous scientific institutions around the world that helped make the massive accelerator a reality.

The LHC tunnel

Through the course of more than 10 years, Brookhaven scientists, engineers, and technicians designed and built specialized LHC superconducting magnets as key parts of one of the detectors, worked on the "trigger" that will identify interesting collision events, and developed software and analysis techniques to search for evidence of supersymmetry, dark matter, and the Higgs boson - the particle thought to give objects mass. The Lab also serves as the lead institution for U.S. participation in ATLAS, one of the biggest experiments at the LHC.

Once it starts full operations, the LHC will be the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, opening the doors to uncover numerous particle physics mysteries. At that point, Brookhaven's responsibilities will grow as well. The Lab is designated as the sole Tier-1 computing facility for ATLAS in the United States - and the largest ATLAS computing center worldwide. In this role, Brookhaven provides a large portion of the overall computing resources for U.S. collaborators and will serve as the central hub for storing, processing, and distributing ATLAS experimental data among scientists across the country.

Brookhaven scientists are already working on the upgrade of the ATLAS detector and the LHC itself to help scientists delve even deeper into the mysteries of the Universe further down the road.

Read details about this morning's first beam test here.

For more information about Brookhaven's contributions to the LHC, check out the newly redesigned website, http://www.bnl.gov/atlas.

2008-834  |  Media & Communications Office

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

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