CERN’s Ambitious Plan to Build the Largest Particle Smasher Ever

[dragulagu]

Big plans at Cern, more energy for bigger collissions for now and if it's passed, the current LHC accellerator will be turned into a pre-stage accelerator for Cern's future Accelerator ring (which will be 4 times as big as the current one). That's a big project, did not expect that one.

 

[Pin]

Holy shit.

We're getting a better one now?!?

 

[Ifur]

Big plans at Cern, more energy for bigger collissions for now and if it's passed, the current LHC accellerator will be turned into a pre-stage accelerator for Cern's future Accelerator ring (which will be 4 times as big as the current one). That's a big project, did not expect that one.

Those involved in the proposals are likely to be dead long before it's ever built. Currently the LHC is in long shutdown for upgrades, where the most significant is better source for lead ions, and allowing a much higher rate of collisions, there is a slight bump in energies to the what it was designed for. It's planned to be operating again in 2021, but can expect delays as the projects that have priority here isn't known to get things done with time to spare. This means that after 10 years it's operating at energies and rates that it was intended and designed for.

https://lhc-commissioning.web.cern.ch/lhc-commissioning/schedule/LHC-long-term.htm

There you find information about the LHC until 2037.

So don't listen to any of that, right now the interest is in what is mentioned in the video.
Electron positron collision for example, but in order to measure Higgs very precise.
Linac has been better historically, and there are several projects planned or agreed upon.
Problem with accelerators like LHC is synchrotron radiation, background radiation and the works.
So those who like them need to argue that a lot of statistics is better, and those with LINAC that better control and less noise.

Not only is this search for bigger and bigger particles possibly a complete waste of time, some of the reasoning is highly questionable.
So how many particles have been discovered so far?

http://pdg.lbl.gov/2019/listings/contents_listings.html

Used to be called the particle zoo before the standard model, now it's often referred to as the particle soup.

 

[dragulagu]

Holy shit.

We're getting a better one now?!?

Hopefully yeah, it's still in a pre-planning phase, so nothing is sure yet. I'm a was a bit surprised as the original planning wasn't meant to go as far as beyond the current accelerator. There
were a lot of problems in regards to the fundaments it was built on, the ground not being stable etc. So I'm surprised they are even going to expand this as much. It's going to cost a lot. And I wonder
how they will properly extend/integrate the research facilities (CMS, ATLAS, Alice) into the new ring.

@Ifur thanks for the information man, checked the links, stored in my favorites. Props.
Btw, another cool thing to follow (when it's operational) are the OP Vistars, those are the control panels of the CERN facility (LHC and detectors) where you can follow the
experiments: https://op-webtools.web.cern.ch/vistar/vistars.php

This means that after 10 years it's operating at energies and rates that it was intended and designed for.

I thought the original design was to have 14TeV collisions (7 TeV beams, which is now). So the current upgrade is beyond what it is designed for, though they are upgrading the material.

Electron positron collision for example, but in order to measure Higgs very precise.

I wonder how that works, as I understand both the Electron and Positron are elementary particles and as I've understood (and correct me here if i'm wrong) they do not have any interactions with Higgs fields. I would think that Electron Positron collisions would result in pure energy collisions. https://radiopaedia.org/articles/electron-positron-annihilation
(hmm, the wikipedia article seems to state that in high energetic forms of the collision i can produce B mesons and W / Z bosons - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron–positron_annihilation)

Problem with accelerators like LHC is synchrotron radiation, background radiation and the works.
So those who like them need to argue that a lot of statistics is better, and those with LINAC that better control and less noise.

Cool, didn't know that.

Used to be called the particle zoo before the standard model, now it's often referred to as the particle soup.

Indeed

 

[Ifur]

I thought the original design was to have 14TeV collisions (7 TeV beams, which is now). So the current upgrade is beyond what it is designed for, though they are upgrading the material.

According to the schedule,it's 6,5 TeV now,and 7 after 2021. But 50kHz PbPb.

I wonder how that works, as I understand both the Electron and Positron are elementary particles and as I've understood (and correct me here if i'm wrong) they do not have any interactions with Higgs fields. I would think that Electron Positron collisions would result in pure energy collisions. https://radiopaedia.org/articles/electron-positron-annihilation
(hmm, the wikipedia article seems to state that in high energetic forms of the collision i can produce B mesons and W / Z bosons - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron–positron_annihilation)

E=MC^2

Hard to forget this to be true. Electron is an exact energy, so whatever the result is.....
Quantum things have a probability distribution, since we now know the Higgs mass, we have a target.

 

[dragulagu]

According to the schedule,it's 6,5 TeV now,and 7 after 2021. But 50kHz PbPb.

From their documentation published from 2008, the intended operational energy per beam would be 7 TeV. And I thought, if i'm correct that they already achieved this for a couple years, I'll have to recheck on it.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-0221/3/08/S08001/pdf

E=MC^2

Hard to forget this to be true. Electron is an exact energy, so whatever the result is.....
Quantum things have a probability distribution, since we now know the Higgs mass, we have a target.

Ok but I'd assume you can't just create any type of particle from smashing a specific set of particles together?
The essence of what I was stating is that when you combine a particle with their antiparticle, it would assume total annihilation into pure energy, not new particles.

Now, in regards to the Higgs mass, it seems electrons do have interaction with the Higgs field. I stand corrected.

This is where Higgs’ particle comes in. We can’t figure out why the electron and the quarks have a mass; unless, somehow, they obtain a mass by interacting in a special way with the so-called Higgs field. If this Higgs' explanation is correct and this Higgs field really exists and is present everywhere in the Universe, then one consequence is that the Higgs field can clump together and form a new kind of particle. This new particle is Higgs’ particle, which we call the Higgs boson. To see if Higgs’ theory is really true we will need to find some Higgs bosons and see if they really do interact with quarks, electrons and the other fundamental particles we know about.

https://www.ph.ed.ac.uk/higgs/laypersons-guide

 

[Ifur]

Fundamentals of metpahyiscs are the following:
RULES.
THINGS.
NOTHING.

We start with things and nothing. In order to speak of things, we add dimensions. This allows us to speak of the spin of things. Take three things, and they can spin in harmony as a thing.
We can call this half and full spin if you will, as we now venture into energies and framers of references as what it means to be a thing and something real. But we call nothing a real thing, lack of things is real as it is nothing without things. Lack oft things in a large collection of nothing, and conversely a large collection of things -- at some point we end up in the absurdities of black holes and the interaction of particles in space with liquid space and call it particle-wave duality. So lots of things with no space is a paradox and quite tricky from a physics point of view, just call it dark-matter and the wave in quantum electro dynamics. And I make so much sense, you may prefer to pinch your arm rather than argue with me. Because all the difficult things about general relativity just got a context with the standard model and became conceptually simpler.

Edit: not my best work....

But here we have the true fuckery and problem of physics,high energyp particles is not the problem.
This is where we spend billions to work out this detail, as this is what theory is truly about.


Balder

 

[dragulagu]

Ok

 

[Krypton]

Here's hoping they don't find what they expect to find. Maybe a different set of physics will allow for cooler stuff to happen.

 

[Ifur]

Ok

You agree that largest possible particles with associated oddities that can be modeled and speculated around to not be interesting?
Large statistics come with large problems, when Higgs was announced and nobody cared around me.
I watched the presentation at CERN, were told they found "5" perfect events where this means all the energy was accounted for and detected.
Also discussed Higgs with one of the guys that made one of the plots.

 

[Ifur]

Here's hoping they don't find what they expect to find. Maybe a different set of physics will allow for cooler stuff to happen.

Everyone was hoping they wouldn't find Higgs, as it would mean a new direction for physics.
This being said since LEP it's been known the new particle would be anywhere from 124GeV to 1 TEV.
(was never a 5 sigma signal, but there was one signal around this range for LEP)
"Good guess" and being this massive, it also naturally shows all the traits and discrepancies required to say it's particle that mediates the abnormality called the Higgs field.

For 40 years, its been a game of particle and what ad-hoc thing is right or not.

So here is a theory:
There is no actual limit for the size of massive particles if this is due to smaller things lumping together in some harmony or other. Nothing useful will ever be built and done with Higgs or any other large particle comparable to let's say a laser. electron, photon and neutrino are still the smallest known particles.

 

[dragulagu]

Here's hoping they don't find what they expect to find. Maybe a different set of physics will allow for cooler stuff to happen.

Hmm, let them find whatever they need to find, a different set of physics will be found in other experiments.

You agree that largest possible particles with associated oddities that can be modeled and speculated around to not be interesting?
Large statistics come with large problems, when Higgs was announced and nobody cared around me.
I watched the presentation at CERN, were told they found "5" perfect events where this means all the energy was accounted for and detected.
Also discussed Higgs with one of the guys that made one of the plots.

The OK was more a response of not knowing how to answer on your metaphysical approach (and it was a bit dismissive, sorry for that). Metaphysics has its place, but not in the realm of experimental physics.
On finding the largest possible particles, I don't agree that the prospect of them not being interesting, it is a necessity to discover these particles to test out the the boundaries on the creation of all possible particles. I'm not a fan of these gigantic quark combinations, but they exist and should be discovered / accounted for. Nice @ discussing Higgs with one of the plotters, call me a bit jealous .

Everyone was hoping they wouldn't find Higgs, as it would mean a new direction for physics.
This being said since LEP it's been known the new particle would be anywhere from 124GeV to 1 TEV.
(was never a 5 sigma signal, but there was one signal around this range for LEP)
"Good guess" and being this massive, it also naturally shows all the traits and discrepancies required to say it's particle that mediates the abnormality called the Higgs field.

For 40 years, its been a game of particle and what ad-hoc thing is right or not.

So here is a theory:
There is no actual limit for the size of massive particles if this is due to smaller things lumping together in some harmony or other. Nothing useful will ever be built and done with Higgs or any other large particle comparable to let's say a laser. electron, photon and neutrino are still the smallest known particles.

Everyone wanted to find Higgs, exactly because of this opens a new array of possibilities in the realm of quantum physics. That's what scientist strive for, to discover the new, not to conclude that what already is known (though Higgs covers this a bit). And it does seem to have been covered by 5-sigma accuracy https://understandinguncertainty.org/explaining-5-sigma-higgs-how-well-did-they-do http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=103? The upgrades should cover the accuracy as well in the near future. There must be a limit to massive particles in regards to stability, the same way as there is for atomic compositions. I'm not following on the devaluation of the Higgs field/particle and laser comparison?

 

[Ifur]

Metaphysics has its place, but not in the realm of experimental physics.

I agree, but the implications for philosophy of science and the theoretical work is huge.
Currently, the philosophy that drives much of the theoretical work is called phenomenology.
And here it's time to cringe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(physics)

Everyone wanted to find Higgs, exactly because of this opens a new array of possibilities in the realm of quantum physics

Three sigma is the mathematically more sound criteria for saying it was not an accident, that there is something one should either be able to explain about the experiment or the theory.
Since I'm interested in this, I asked CERN theory about the 5 sigma rule, and it was just a number they chose to not have to deal with all the conflicting results in the 50's and 60's -- it was embarrassing.
Those working on models that preferred to have the Higgs in them, were all hoping for a discovery and to further the success of the model.
However, quite a lot of experimental physicists didn't care much about it, depending on their field and area of interest.

If you look closer at what Phenomenology actually is, it's a process of using preliminary data before there is a 5 sigma result.
In order to work that result into a paper and formula, and they call this science.

Now, this being said, many experiments at CERN are much cooler than many of the things going on at the LHC, where perhaps LHCb is the most fun.

My favourite example is the https://home.cern/science/accelerators/antiproton-decelerator experiment. One of the things they looked into was if anti matter behaved the same way in gravity -- if there was any difference. And here there is a wide range of things that can be studied under the principle, "is it the same or not?".

 

[dragulagu]

I agree, but the implications for philosophy of science and the theoretical work is huge.
Currently, the philosophy that drives much of the theoretical work is called phenomenology.
And here it's time to cringe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(physics)

If you look closer at what Phenomenology actually is, it's a process of using preliminary data before there is a 5 sigma result.
In order to work that result into a paper and formula, and they call this science.

Fascinating, I did not know of the term phenomenology before and I agree with you, this is just backwards in regards to scientific research. And indeed, metaphysics is having a bigger role in physics the latest years...not a fan of it.
when there are no existing theories for the observed experimental data
QFT. Behold, an experimental discovery found on CERN! Behold 1000's of papers released in 2 days time trying to explain said discovery. It's a nightmare.

Three sigma is the mathematically more sound criteria for saying it was not an accident, that there is something one should either be able to explain about the experiment or the theory.
Since I'm interested in this, I asked CERN theory about the 5 sigma rule, and it was just a number they chose to not have to deal with all the conflicting results in the 50's and 60's -- it was embarrassing.
Those working on models that preferred to have the Higgs in them, were all hoping for a discovery and to further the success of the model.
However, quite a lot of experimental physicists didn't care much about it, depending on their field and area of interest.

I did not know of the origin of the 5 sigma rule, very interesting. Still I'd state that it is statistically significant, especially for experiments performed CERN where you need to filter out a massive amount of readings, 3 sigma leaves too much on the error rate of the experiments.

Currently CERN doesn't have much more around it as SUSY still remains undiscovered and current discoveries are not that significant...Still...it's good that it'll still be operational, let them experiment. I'm more worried on the Chinese counterpart as they are working beyond what's theoretically beyond safety regulations in regards to the particle collisions. CERN was built around theoretical limits, the Chinese variant is not. https://phys.org/news/2015-10-china-super-super-collider.html

FYI; https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00824-4

 

[Ifur]

I did not know of the origin of the 5 sigma rule, very interesting. Still I'd state that it is statistically significant, especially for experiments performed CERN where you need to filter out a massive amount of readings, 3 sigma leaves too much on the error rate of the experiments.

"Data driven", but signals above 3 sigma still get a lot of interest, and many come and go. With little interest in explaining them. The amount of statistics and data to get from 3 to 5 is quite larger.
But the only thing a bit worry some here is the complete lack of interest in low energies, anything with a realistic economic impact will be found here.
You are right, there is quite a lot of "cuts" done one the data to get rid of noise, and they do other things to search possibilities in the noise.

Neutrino experiments and that anti proton decelerator may be more interesting as many things about HEP is engineering porn!
And much less, "oh shit! we don't know what to expect from this".
Not that many experiments that have studied the neutrino oscillation problem after it was solved.
Good science is to do it all over again to make sure.

Currently CERN doesn't have much more around it as SUSY still remains undiscovered and current discoveries are not that significant...Still...it's good that it'll still be operational, let them experiment. I'm more worried on the Chinese counterpart as they are working beyond what's theoretically beyond safety regulations in regards to the particle collisions. CERN was built around theoretical limits, the Chinese variant is not. https://phys.org/news/2015-10-china-super-super-collider.html

There is big economic interests in these things as a lot of technology gets developed in the process.
Japan decided to fund most of the cost for the ILC ( there is also CLIC), most likely it will pay for itself for Japan's technology sector.

FYI; https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00824-4

Was involved in a proposal and involvement in that! Didn't go through, had to do with machine learning and particle identification. (actually, it was a LArTPC experiment and letter of interest in ILC).

 

[dragulagu]

"Data driven", but signals above 3 sigma still get a lot of interest, and many come and go. With little interest in explaining them. The amount of statistics and data to get from 3 to 5 is quite larger.
But the only thing a bit worry some here is the complete lack of interest in low energies, anything with a realistic economic impact will be found here.
You are right, there is quite a lot of "cuts" done one the data to get rid of noise, and they do other things to search possibilities in the noise.

Neutrino experiments and that anti proton decelerator may be more interesting as many things about HEP is engineering porn!
And much less, "oh shit! we don't know what to expect from this".
Not that many experiments that have studied the neutrino oscillation problem after it was solved.
Good science is to do it all over again to make sure.

Sparking my curiosity here! I'll have to check on these (currently lacking the knowledge to dive in these experiments).
Good science is to do it all over again to make sure.

There is big economic interests in these things as a lot of technology gets developed in the process.
Japan decided to fund most of the cost for the ILC ( there is also CLIC), most likely it will pay for itself for Japan's technology sector.

Indeed and interesting!

Was involved in a proposal and involvement in that! Didn't go through, had to do with machine learning and particle identification.

Impressed! I will put effort in it.

 

[Ifur]

Impressed! I will put effort in it.

Don't be, had been done before, just not with more reliable deep learning methods.
Different particles makes different shaped clusters in the detector that are easy for a person and hard for a computer.

 

[dragulagu]

No no, i mean put effort in reading through the material. It's interesting.

 

[Ifur]

Sparking my curiosity here! I'll have to check on these (currently lacking the knowledge to dive in these experiments).
Good science is to do it all over again to make sure.

Including repeating the large "beer can" accelerator.
So an engineer left a beer can in when the LEP was being built, they couldn't figure out what was wrong with the vacuum.

The guy that discovered that the local tram and it's schedule was what was impacting the LHC got a bottle of champagne.
If I remember correctly it dawned on him as he got a text on the tram as it was laving. And this was before the new much closer tram was built.

The water level in lake Geneva and the moon impacts the LHC and has to be calibrated for, what else hides in the noise and calibration data is hard to say.

The ugly and entertaining truth of physics experiments, so much can go wrong, including loose cables.

Geneva Airport asked for additional radiation shielding for the experiment closest to it.
This scared the physicists, "you've got to be shitting me?".

My favourite must be the guy that brought one of these tungsten crystals with him in his carry on luggage. Air port security couldn't see anything there on the x-ray, as this is a scintillating material, so it came out with a nice green tint. "what do you do they asked? I'm nuclear physicists working for CERN."

http://cds.cern.ch/record/1101276

A broken crystal like that which he got to keep. So in the experiments, these things have probably a photo cell at the bottom under perfectly dark conditions. And depending on the shape and amount of light that his there, you know some properties like energy especially. So basically Bremsstrahlung and since it's electrons, it's not likely to hit an atom directly, the higher the energies the more stuff gets knocked lose and becomes part of the cascade effect.

 

[dragulagu]

The water level in lake Geneva and the moon impacts the LHC and has to be calibrated for, what else hides in the noise and calibration data is hard to say.

This reminds me of LIGO, I recall reading about it on the impact that the surroundings of the facility has in regards to the noise on the measurements, where even the ocean waves 100's of miles away have an impact on the measurements. Which is just amazing from an engineering point of view how they can manage all this noise (as it is with CERN).

https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/vibration-isolation
https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/feedback

While we can’t stop the world and its inhabitants from causing vibrations, what we can control is LIGO’s responses to these environmental disturbances. We do this through the use of hundreds of levels of feedback and control systems, which maintain all of LIGO’s parts in near-perfect stillness in the quietest man-made environment on Earth.

A broken crystal like that which he got to keep. So in the experiments, these things have probably a photo cell at the bottom under perfectly dark conditions. And depending on the shape and amount of light that his there, you know some properties like energy especially. So basically Bremsstrahlung and since it's electrons, it's not likely to hit an atom directly, the higher the energies the more stuff gets knocked lose and becomes part of the cascade effect.

Just read the article as well, love this stuff. It's amazing how hey use the specific density (and assuming specific composition) properties of these crystals for this purpose.

The ECAL detects electrons and photons that are produced from proton collisions at CMS by making use of the scintillation properties of the crystals. When particles pass through the crystals they deposit energy, which is then emitted by the crystal in the form of light. The level of scintillation light is a linear function of the energy of the particle. Therefore, when you measure the light you can calculate the energy of the particle that produced it.