The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in an underground tunnel on the French-Swiss border, is the world’s most powerful accelerator. Contributions to its advanced electronics and other technologies came from many countries.
Tools of particle physics
To study nature’s smallest, simplest particles, physicists use the largest, most complex scientific instruments on earth.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, USA. The US Department of Energy’s Fermilab is the dedicated particle physics laboratory of the US. During 28 years of operation, Fermilab’s Tevatron (large circle at right) led worldwide research at the energy frontier. The Tevatron experiments CDF and DZero included hundreds of collaborators from Europe and Asia as well as the Americas. Their discoveries profoundly changed our picture of the structure of matter, creating a legacy of knowledge that, with the Tevatron’s pioneering technology, form a foundation for discovery at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The Main Injector accelerator (foreground) is a key component of Fermilab’s current and future research in the critical physics of neutrinos and nature’s rarest processes.
High energy
At the energy frontier, particle beams accelerated to ultra-high energy collide inside giant particle detectors. From the collision energy emerge particles that have not existed since the earliest moments of the universe. The detectors record the results of millions of collisions each second, and powerful computing grids distribute the collision data to collaborating physicists around the world for analysis—and for discoveries that illuminate the fundamental nature of the world around us.
Related Images (Click to enlarge)
CERN is at the heart of a worldwide LHC computing grid that brings together over 200 computer centers around the globe. Through the grid, scientists working on LHC experiments have access to a vast computing resource as if it were on their desktops. This image shows traffic on the grid at one instant in time, with data analysis in full swing.
Seen during construction, the toroidal magnet system of the ATLAS particle detector dwarfs the person standing in the foreground. ATLAS was built and is operated by a global collaboration of around 3000 scientists working at universities and institutes in 38 countries. One of the most complex scientific instruments ever built, its 100 million readout channels record data that physicists are analyzing in search of new physics
At KEK in Japan, accelerator experts test advanced superconducting radiofrequency technology, under development for the proposed International Linear Collider. The technology combines efforts and components from DESY (Germany), INFN Milano-LASA (Italy), KEK (Japan), Fermilab and SLAC (US).
Particle collisions in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider produce beautiful images such as this one, recorded in the CMS particle detector. The initial collision gave rise to new particles, which in turn left these tracks in the detector. By analyzing millions of collisions like these, CMS’s global community of scientists are seeking out new phenomena.
