After a long period of improvements, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator is returning to activity at CERN
in search of "new physics beyond the standard model." The development of the particle accelerator detectors in Geneva involves many Israeli researchers, including researchers at the Technion's Faculty of Physics, Prof. Shlomit Tarem, Prof. Yoram Rozen and Dr. Enrique Kajomovitz.
In the occasion of the resumption of activity of the LHC, Haaretz interviewed some of the leading Israeli researchers in the project, including Prof. Yoram Rozen, who explained the research significance of the new improvements in the accelerator.
The LHC is a proton - hydrogen atom particle – accelerator, in which the protons are accelerated in two opposite directions in order to produce collisions between them and thus cause the formation of heavy particles. The accelerator upgrade in recent years increases the number of protons in each beam and thus increases the chance of collision and the formation of heavy particles.
According to Yoram Rozen, "Think of two children holding a handful of sand in their hand and throwing it towards each other. There are a lot of grains, and only a small part of them encounter a grain from the other side. What we did in the current upgrade is to ‘cram’ the grains. Therefor the protons in the beams are now much more concentrated and there will be many more collisions. “
This important event takes place exactly ten years after the discovery of the Higgs particle on July 4, 2012 - an event that led to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics (2013) to Prof. Peter Higgs and Prof. Francois Englert.
Read the full article on Haaretz here.
Credit: Technion Spokes person.