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August 4, 2009
Giant Particle Collider Struggles
By DENNIS OVERBYE
The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections.
Many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies.
Some physicists are deserting the European project, at least temporarily, to work at a smaller, rival machine across the ocean.
After 15 years and $9 billion, and a showy “switch-on” ceremony last September, the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator outside Geneva, has to yet collide any particles at all.
But soon?
This week, scientists and engineers at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, are to announce how and when their machine will start running this winter.
“The fact is, it’s likely to take a while to get the results we really want,” said Lisa Randall, a Harvard physicist who is an architect of the extra-dimension theory.
“These are baby problems,” said Peter Limon, a physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., who helped build the collider. Hey Peter, don't let self-interest get in the way.
“I’ve waited 15 years,” said Nima Arkani-Hamed, a leading particle theorist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. “I want it to get up running. We can’t tolerate another disaster. It has to run smoothly from now.”
The delays are hardest on younger scientists, who may need data to complete a thesis or work toward tenure.
Colliders get their oomph from Einstein’s equivalence of mass and energy, both expressed in the currency of electron volts. The CERN collider was designed to investigate what happens at energies and distances where the reigning theory, known as the Standard Model, breaks down and gives nonsense answers.
The collider’s own prodigious energies are in some way its worst enemy. At full strength, the energy stored in its superconducting magnets would equal that of an Airbus A380 flying at 450 miles an hour, and the proton beam itself could pierce 100 feet of solid copper.
In order to carry enough current, the collider’s magnets are cooled by liquid helium to a temperature of 1.9 degrees above absolute zero, at which point the niobium-titanium cables in them lose all electrical resistance and become superconducting.
Any perturbation, however, such as a bad soldering job on a splice, can cause resistance and heat the cable and cause it to lose its superconductivity in what physicists call a “quench.” Which is what happened on Sept. 19, when the junction between two magnets vaporized in a shower of sparks, soot and liberated helium.
About 5,000 will have to be redone.
The exploding splices have diverted engineers’ attention from the mystery of the underperforming magnets. Before the superconducting magnets are installed, engineers “train” each one by ramping up its electrical current until the magnet fails, or “quenches.” Thus the magnet gradually grows comfortable with higher and higher current.
All of the magnets for the collider were trained to an energy above seven trillion electron volts before being installed, Dr. Myers said, but when engineers tried to take one of the rings’ eight sectors to a higher energy last year, some magnets unexpectedly failed.
In an e-mail exchange, Lucio Rossi, head of magnets for CERN, said that 49 magnets had lost their training in the sectors tested and that it was impossible to estimate how many in the entire collider had gone bad. He said the magnets in question had all met specifications and that the problem might stem from having sat outside for a year before they could be installed.
Retraining magnets is costly and time consuming, experts say, and it might not be worth the wait to get all the way to the original target energy. “It looks like we can get to 6.5 relatively easily,” Dr. Myers said, but seven trillion electron volts would require “a lot of training.”
“The public pays for this and we need to start delivering.”
Now that would be a breakthrough in any field.
Many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies.
Some physicists are deserting the European project, at least temporarily, to work at a smaller, rival machine across the ocean.
After 15 years and $9 billion, and a showy “switch-on” ceremony last September, the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator outside Geneva, has to yet collide any particles at all.
But soon?
This week, scientists and engineers at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, are to announce how and when their machine will start running this winter.
“The fact is, it’s likely to take a while to get the results we really want,” said Lisa Randall, a Harvard physicist who is an architect of the extra-dimension theory.
“These are baby problems,” said Peter Limon, a physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., who helped build the collider. Hey Peter, don't let self-interest get in the way.
“I’ve waited 15 years,” said Nima Arkani-Hamed, a leading particle theorist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. “I want it to get up running. We can’t tolerate another disaster. It has to run smoothly from now.”
The delays are hardest on younger scientists, who may need data to complete a thesis or work toward tenure.
Colliders get their oomph from Einstein’s equivalence of mass and energy, both expressed in the currency of electron volts. The CERN collider was designed to investigate what happens at energies and distances where the reigning theory, known as the Standard Model, breaks down and gives nonsense answers.
The collider’s own prodigious energies are in some way its worst enemy. At full strength, the energy stored in its superconducting magnets would equal that of an Airbus A380 flying at 450 miles an hour, and the proton beam itself could pierce 100 feet of solid copper.
In order to carry enough current, the collider’s magnets are cooled by liquid helium to a temperature of 1.9 degrees above absolute zero, at which point the niobium-titanium cables in them lose all electrical resistance and become superconducting.
Any perturbation, however, such as a bad soldering job on a splice, can cause resistance and heat the cable and cause it to lose its superconductivity in what physicists call a “quench.” Which is what happened on Sept. 19, when the junction between two magnets vaporized in a shower of sparks, soot and liberated helium.
About 5,000 will have to be redone.
The exploding splices have diverted engineers’ attention from the mystery of the underperforming magnets. Before the superconducting magnets are installed, engineers “train” each one by ramping up its electrical current until the magnet fails, or “quenches.” Thus the magnet gradually grows comfortable with higher and higher current.
All of the magnets for the collider were trained to an energy above seven trillion electron volts before being installed, Dr. Myers said, but when engineers tried to take one of the rings’ eight sectors to a higher energy last year, some magnets unexpectedly failed.
In an e-mail exchange, Lucio Rossi, head of magnets for CERN, said that 49 magnets had lost their training in the sectors tested and that it was impossible to estimate how many in the entire collider had gone bad. He said the magnets in question had all met specifications and that the problem might stem from having sat outside for a year before they could be installed.
Retraining magnets is costly and time consuming, experts say, and it might not be worth the wait to get all the way to the original target energy. “It looks like we can get to 6.5 relatively easily,” Dr. Myers said, but seven trillion electron volts would require “a lot of training.”
“The public pays for this and we need to start delivering.”
Now that would be a breakthrough in any field.
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