 |
|
Last large piece of ATLAS detector lowered underground
March 03, 2008Today, researchers in the U.S. ATLAS collaboration joined colleagues around the world to celebrate a pivotal landmark in the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the lowering of the final piece of the ATLAS particle detector into the underground collision hall at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Experiments conducted at this revolutionary LHC facility, poised to become the world's most powerful particle accelerator, may help scientists unravel some of the deepest mysteries in particle physics. The U.S. branch of the collaboration (U.S. ATLAS), which is based at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and includes scientists and technicians from Argonne National Laboratory, built and delivered several key elements of the ATLAS detector.
"We're proud of the teams involved in this international scientific endeavor - one of the largest collaborative efforts ever attempted in the physical sciences," said Dennis Kovar, acting associate director for High Energy Physics in DOE's Office of Science. "This technical landmark brings us a huge step closer to unveiling a new level of understanding of our universe."
Of the almost 2,100 participants in the ATLAS collaboration, about 420 are U.S. physicists, engineers and graduate students. Hailing from 38 universities and four national laboratories, these U.S. collaborators are supported by DOE and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The last piece of ATLAS lowered into the ATLAS experimental cavern is one of two elements known as the small wheels. The two ATLAS small wheels, though little in comparison to the rest of the ATLAS detector, are each about 30 feet in diameter and weigh 100 tons. The wheels are covered with sensitive detectors that will be used to identify and measure the momentum of subatomic particles called muons that are created in collisions at the LHC. The entire detector system has an area equal to three football fields, consisting of 100 million independent electronic channels. As charged particles pass through a magnetic field created by superconducting magnets, this detector has the ability to accurately track them to the precision of the width of a human hair.
"This is a remarkable milestone in the complicated construction of the ATLAS detector," said Joseph Dehmer, director of the Physics Division at the NSF. "The LHC is one of the most exciting physics experiments for this decade and beyond. We are impressed by the hundreds of U.S. university and national laboratory scientists who are working hard to make this extraordinary project a reality. We look forward to the groundbreaking results that are now just around the corner."
Involving the work of 450 physicists from 48 institutions around the world, lowering this last small wheel marks the end of a decade of planning and construction of the muon spectrometer system.
DOE's Argonne National Laboratory has made significant contributions in all stages of acquiring, selecting, storing and accessing the data from ATLAS. Argonne physicists helped to design and construct the Hadronic Tile Calorimeter, which will measure the energy produced after tiny atomic particles called hadrons strike the sensor array.
The complicated network of data processing nodes that captures the signals from the array also owes its existence in part to work done by Argonne researchers. This network, called the "trigger," then selects the most interesting interactions for further analysis.
Argonne scientists also developed the software that permits the organization and sharing of the large amounts of data produced by the detector.
"Argonne's contributions to the ATLAS project illustrate the laboratory's long commitment to collaboration and show that we continue to work right at the leading edge of physics," said Argonne Senior Physicist James Proudfoot.
Experiments at the LHC will allow physicists to take a big leap in their exploration of the universe. The ATLAS detector may help its scientists unravel some of the deepest mysteries in particle physics such as the origin of mass or the identification of dark matter. The ATLAS collaboration will now focus on commissioning the detector in preparation for the start-up of the LHC this summer.
DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
The last piece of ATLAS lowered into the ATLAS experimental cavern is one of two elements known as the small wheels. The two ATLAS small wheels, though little in comparison to the rest of the ATLAS detector, are each about 30 feet in diameter and weigh 100 tons. The wheels are covered with sensitive detectors that will be used to identify and measure the momentum of subatomic particles called muons that are created in collisions at the LHC. The entire detector system has an area equal to three football fields, consisting of 100 million independent electronic channels. As charged particles pass through a magnetic field created by superconducting magnets, this detector has the ability to accurately track them to the precision of the width of a human hair.
"This is a remarkable milestone in the complicated construction of the ATLAS detector," said Joseph Dehmer, director of the Physics Division at the NSF. "The LHC is one of the most exciting physics experiments for this decade and beyond. We are impressed by the hundreds of U.S. university and national laboratory scientists who are working hard to make this extraordinary project a reality. We look forward to the groundbreaking results that are now just around the corner."
Involving the work of 450 physicists from 48 institutions around the world, lowering this last small wheel marks the end of a decade of planning and construction of the muon spectrometer system.
DOE's Argonne National Laboratory has made significant contributions in all stages of acquiring, selecting, storing and accessing the data from ATLAS. Argonne physicists helped to design and construct the Hadronic Tile Calorimeter, which will measure the energy produced after tiny atomic particles called hadrons strike the sensor array.
The complicated network of data processing nodes that captures the signals from the array also owes its existence in part to work done by Argonne researchers. This network, called the "trigger," then selects the most interesting interactions for further analysis.
Argonne scientists also developed the software that permits the organization and sharing of the large amounts of data produced by the detector.
"Argonne's contributions to the ATLAS project illustrate the laboratory's long commitment to collaboration and show that we continue to work right at the leading edge of physics," said Argonne Senior Physicist James Proudfoot.
Experiments at the LHC will allow physicists to take a big leap in their exploration of the universe. The ATLAS detector may help its scientists unravel some of the deepest mysteries in particle physics such as the origin of mass or the identification of dark matter. The ATLAS collaboration will now focus on commissioning the detector in preparation for the start-up of the LHC this summer.
DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Large Hadron Collider Current Events and Large Hadron Collider News RSSPhysicists seek to keep next-gen colliders in 1 piece
Controlling huge electromagnetic forces that have the potential to destroy the next generation of particle accelerators is the subject of a new paper by a University of Manchester physicist.
Intense heat killed the Universe's would-be galaxies, researchers say
Our Milky Way galaxy only survived because it was already immersed in a large clump of dark matter which trapped gases inside it.
Atomic physics study sets new limits on hypothetical new particles
In a forthcoming Physical Review Letters article, a group of physicists at the University of Nevada, Reno are reporting a refined analysis of experiments on violation of mirror symmetry in atoms that sets new constraints on a hypothesized particle, the extra Z-boson.
Particle physics study finds new data for extra Z-bosons and potential fifth force of nature
The Large Hadron Collider is an enormous particle accelerator whose 17-mile tunnel straddles the borders of France and Switzerland. A group of physicists at the University of Nevada, Reno has analyzed data from the accelerator that could ultimately prove or disprove the possibility of a fifth force of nature.
Argonne cloud computing helps scientists run high energy physics experiments
A novel system is enabling high energy physicists at CERN in Switzerland, to make production runs that integrate their existing pool of distributed computers with dynamic resources in "science clouds."
MSU scientists help lead teams in detection of fundamental component of matter
Michigan State University scientists and colleagues around the world took a step closer to understanding the universe with the discovery of a fundamental building block of nature.
Brown physicists play key role in single top quark discovery
Brown University physicists have played a key role in observing particle collisions that produce a single top quark, one of the fundamental constituents of matter. The discovery was announced Monday by scientists of the CDF and DZero collaborations at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
Secrets behind high temperature superconductors revealed
Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) have found evidence that magnetism is involved in the mechanism behind high temperature superconductivity.
Physicists create BlackMax to search for dimensions in space at the Large Hadron Collider
A team of theoretical and experimental physicists, with participants from Case Western Reserve University, have designed a new black hole simulator called BlackMax to search for evidence that extra dimensions might exist in the universe.
What to do with 15 million gigabytes of data
When it is fully up and running, the four massive detectors on the new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN particle-physics lab near Geneva are expected to produce up to 15 million gigabytes, aka 15 petabytes, of data every yea
More Large Hadron Collider Current Events and Large Hadron Collider News Articles
 |
The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider by Don Lincoln (Author) The highest-energy particle accelerator ever built, the Large Hadron Collider runs under the border between France and Switzerland. It leapt into action on September 10, 2008, amid unprecedented global press coverage and widespread fears that its energy would create tiny black holes that could destroy the earth. By smashing together particles smaller than atoms, the LHC recreates the conditions hypothesized to have existed just moments after the big bang. Physicists expect it to aid our understanding of how the universe came into being and to show us much about the standard model of particle physics -- even possibly proving the existence of the mysterious Higgs boson. In exploring what the collider does and what it might find, Don Lincoln explains what the LHC is likely to teach... |
 |
60 Minutes - The Collider (September 28, 2008) Under the meadows and mountains outside Geneva, 9,000 physicists from all over the world are taking part in one of the biggest, most ambitious scientific collaborations in history. It's called the large hadron collider, a massive scientific instrument that took 20 years to create and cost $8 billion. Steve Kroft descends into the heart of the collider to find out what we hope to learn when atoms smash into each other. This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply. |
 |
The Large Hadron Collider by Lyndon Evans (Editor) The book describes the technology and engineering of the Large Hadron collider (LHC), one of the greatest scientific marvels of this young 21st century. This book traces the feat of its construction, written by the head scientists involved, placed into the context of the scientific goals and principles. Richly illustrated and in full color, this book provides the complete overview of the enterprise, including sections for each of the major experiments. |
 |
Large Hadron Collider Che Grand (Primary Contributor) |
 |
Collider: The Search for the World's Smallest Particles by Paul Halpern (Author) "Paul Halpern is a gifted writer who brings science and scientists alive. This is a wonderful introduction to the world of high-energy physics, where gigantic machines and tiny particles meet."—Kenneth Ford, retired director of the American Institute of Physics and author of The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone "Professor Paul Halpern takes the reader on a stimulating odyssey on topics ranging from particle physics and dark matter to unexplored dimensions of space. The masterful Halpern likens the physicist's quest to the excavation of archaeologists who seek to uncover 'new treasures' as they unearth wondrous gems that lay hidden all around us. Buy this book and feed your mind!"—Dr. Cliff Pickover, author of Archimedes to Hawking and The Math Book "With... |
 |
Large Hadron Collider Phenomenology (Scottish Graduate Series) by M. Kramer (Editor), F.J.P. Soler (Editor) With the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) under construction, and due to come on line in 2007, it is timely for a review to focus on LHC phenomenology. At a time when most of the experimental effort is directed to detector construction and software development, it is vitally important to focus the experimental community, and in particular new researchers, on the physics that the LHC will deliver. The range of physics covered by the LHC is very broad: from searches for the Higgs boson and physics beyond the Standard Model, to detailed studies of Quantum Chromodynamics, the B-physics sectors and the properties of hadronic matter at high energy density as realised in heavy-ion collisions. This book includes contributions from leading researchers on these topics at a pedagogical level,... |
 |
Subatomic (Large Hadron Collider Edit) Rez (Primary Contributor) |
 |
No Canary in the Quanta: Who Gets to Decide if the Large Hadron Collider is Worth Gambling Our Planet? by Harry V. Lehmann (Author) Public interest trial attorney Harry Lehmann is on the case of what could become the greatest gamble our planet has ever faced. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is housed in a tunnel 17 miles in circumference, more than 500 feet underground, at the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. It was built by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, to collide opposing beams of protons at near light speed. LHC was shut down days after its September 2008 launch by a serious fault between two superconducting bending magnets. Now CERN claims it has repaired the original defects and resulting damage, so that it can "safely" fire up the LHC again. But this is the largest science experiment in our planet's history, and its "laboratory" is the planet itself. The stakes could not be higher. No... |
 |
Large Hadron Collider EP Simone Tavazzi (Primary Contributor) |
|
Physics at the Large Hadron Collider by Amitava Datta (Editor), B. Mukhopadhyaya (Editor), A. Raychaudhuri (Editor) This volume contains contributions of leading scientists which discuss different aspects of the physics that could be explored at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is a machine of discovery and it is widely expected that the much-awaited Higgs boson will be detected by it. Also, other open issues include the production of a quark-gluon plasma, the corrections due to strong interactions, search for dark matter, and new theories of supersymmetry or physics models with extra space-time dimensions. |
| © 2009 BrightSurf.com |