Across the Ocean, Yet Close to Home by Katie Yurkewicz
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Across the ocean, yet close to home By Katie Yurkewicz Among the 10,000 people from around the world who are working on the Large Hadron Collider, 1000 hail from universities and national labs in the United States. The Large Hadron Collider is the world’s next-generation and students from almost 60 nations. More than 1000 of particle accelerator. Arguably the most ambitious scien- these hail from 93 universities and national laboratories tific endeavor ever undertaken, the $8.7 billion project at in the United States. Researchers from US institutions have CERN, the European particle physics lab in Geneva, made vital contributions to all aspects of LHC construction, Switzerland, has been in the works for more than two and are now looking forward to the next phase, when they decades. When it begins operating in mid-2008, scien- will see collisions begin, watch data start flowing, and spend tists predict that its very-high-energy collisions will yield many a sleepless night searching for the tracks of particles extraordinary discoveries about the nature of the whose existence would transform our understanding of the physical universe. universe. The LHC project has two equally important aspects: the collider itself and its six particle detectors, each one a Putting the C in LHC self-contained experiment. The collider, nearing completion The heart of the LHC project is the collider itself, and the in a 27-kilometer ring deep below the Swiss-French border, heart of the collider is a series of thousands of super- will accelerate two beams of protons in opposite directions conducting magnets. They create the extremely high to a whisker below the speed of light. For most of their magnetic fields needed to accelerate particles to high split-second journey around the ring, these hair-thin beams energies, guide them in circles, and focus them for collision. will travel in separate vacuum pipes; but at four points, Such fields are possible today only with superconducting in the hearts of the main experiments, they will collide at technology, which requires that the magnets be cooled to energies of 14 trillion electronvolts. These massive experi- nearly absolute zero—colder than outer space—by super- ments—huge both in size and in worldwide participation— fluid helium. are known by their acronyms: ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and The LHC’s particle collisions will reach energies LHCb. They are the tools physicists will use to turn particle seven times higher than those achieved at Fermi National collisions into scientific breakthroughs. Accelerator Laboratory’s Tevatron, the most powerful par- Building the LHC and its experiments has required the ticle collider operating to date. Building a machine capable efforts of some 10,000 scientists, engineers, technicians, of reaching those energies has proved a formidable task; 10 US Participation in the LHC symmetry Arizona University of Arizona, Tucson California California Institute of Technology, Pasadena KEY California Polytechnic State University, ALICE ATLAS San Luis Obispo CMS California State University, Fresno Indiana LHC Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley Indiana University, Bloomington LHCb LHCf Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore Purdue University, West Lafayette TOTEM Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Menlo Park Purdue University Calumet, Hammond University of California, Davis University of Notre Dame, South Bend University of California, Irvine Iowa Minnesota University of California, Los Angeles Iowa State University, Ames University of Minnesota, Puerto Rico University of California, Riverside University of Iowa, Iowa City Minneapolis University of California, San Diego Kansas Mississippi South Carolina University of California, Santa Barbara Kansas State University, Manhattan University of Mississippi, Oxford North Carolina University of South Carolina, Columbia University of California, Santa Cruz University of Kansas, Lawrence Nebraska Duke University, Durham Tennessee Colorado Louisiana Creighton University, Omaha Ohio Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge University of Colorado, Boulder Louisiana Tech University, Ruston University of Nebraska, Lincoln Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Vanderbilt University, Nashville www.symmetrymagazine.org Connecticut Maryland New Jersey Ohio State University, Columbus University of Tennessee, Knoxville Fairfi eld University, Fairfi eld Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore Princeton University, Princeton Ohio Supercomputer Center, Columbus Texas Yale University, New Haven University of Maryland, College Park Rutgers State University of New Jersey, Piscataway Oklahoma Rice University, Houston Florida Massachusetts New Mexico Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma City Southern Methodist University, Dallas Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne Boston University, Boston University of New Mexico, Albuquerque University of Oklahoma, Norman Texas A&M University, College Station Florida International University, Miami Brandeis University, Waltham New York Oregon Texas Tech University, Lubbock volume 04 | issue 10 december 07 Florida State University, Tallahassee Harvard University, Cambridge Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton University of Oregon, Eugene University of Texas at Arlington University of Florida, Gainesville Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University (Nevis Laboratory), New York Pennsylvania University of Texas at Austin Illinois Cambridge Cornell University, Ithaca Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh University of Texas at Dallas symmetry | volume 04 issue 10 december 07 Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Northeastern University, Boston New York University, New York Penn State University, University Park Virginia Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia Tufts University, Medford Rockefeller University, New York University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Hampton University, Hampton Northern Illinois University, DeKalb University of Massachusetts, Amherst State University of New York at Albany University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh University of Virginia, Charlottesville Northwestern University, Evanston Michigan State University of New York at Buffalo Puerto Rico Washington University of Chicago, Chicago Michigan State University, East Lansing State University of New York at Stony Brook University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez University of Washington, Seattle University of Illinois at Chicago University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Syracuse University, Syracuse Rhode Island Wisconsin University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Wayne State University, Detroit University of Rochester, Rochester Brown University, Providence University of Wisconsin, Madison US Participation in the LHC symmetry Arizona University of Arizona, Tucson California California Institute of Technology, Pasadena KEY California Polytechnic State University, ALICE ATLAS San Luis Obispo CMS California State University, Fresno Indiana LHC Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley Indiana University, Bloomington LHCb LHCf Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore Purdue University, West Lafayette TOTEM Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Menlo Park Purdue University Calumet, Hammond University of California, Davis University of Notre Dame, South Bend University of California, Irvine Iowa Minnesota University of California, Los Angeles Iowa State University, Ames University of Minnesota, Puerto Rico University of California, Riverside University of Iowa, Iowa City Minneapolis University of California, San Diego Kansas Mississippi South Carolina University of California, Santa Barbara Kansas State University, Manhattan University of Mississippi, Oxford North Carolina University of South Carolina, Columbia University of California, Santa Cruz University of Kansas, Lawrence Nebraska Duke University, Durham Tennessee Colorado Louisiana Creighton University, Omaha Ohio Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge University of Colorado, Boulder Louisiana Tech University, Ruston University of Nebraska, Lincoln Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Vanderbilt University, Nashville www.symmetrymagazine.org Connecticut Maryland New Jersey Ohio State University, Columbus University of Tennessee, Knoxville Fairfi eld University, Fairfi eld Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore Princeton University, Princeton Ohio Supercomputer Center, Columbus Texas Yale University, New Haven University of Maryland, College Park Rutgers State University of New Jersey, Piscataway Oklahoma Rice University, Houston Florida Massachusetts New Mexico Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma City Southern Methodist University, Dallas Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne Boston University, Boston University of New Mexico, Albuquerque University of Oklahoma, Norman Texas A&M University, College Station Florida International University, Miami Brandeis University, Waltham New York Oregon Texas Tech University, Lubbock volume 04 | issue 10 december 07 Florida State University, Tallahassee Harvard University, Cambridge Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton University of Oregon, Eugene University of Texas at Arlington University of Florida, Gainesville Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University (Nevis Laboratory), New York Pennsylvania University of Texas at Austin Illinois Cambridge Cornell University, Ithaca Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh University of Texas at Dallas symmetry | volume 04 issue 10 december 07 Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne Northeastern University, Boston New York University, New York Penn State