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The Fantastic Machine That Found the Higgs Boson
Jul 6, 2012 |
117
On July 4, scientists working with data from ongoing experiments
at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) announced the discovery of a new
particle "consistent with" the Higgs boson -- a subatomic particle also
colloquially referred to as the "God particle." After years of design
and construction, the LHC first sent protons around its 27 kilometer (17
mile) underground tunnel in 2008. Four years later, the LHC's role in
the discovery of the Higgs boson provides a final missing piece for the
Standard Model of Particle Physics -- a piece that may explain how
otherwise massless subatomic particles can acquire mass. Gathered here
are images from the construction of the massive $4-billion-dollar
machine that allowed us peer so closely into the subatomic world. [34 photos]
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View of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Tracker Outer Barrel in the
cleaning room on January 19, 2007. The CMS is a general-purpose
detector, part of the Large hadron Collider (LHC), and is capable of
studying many aspects of proton collisions at 14 trillion electronvolts.
(Maximilien Brice/© 2012 CERN) 
View of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Tracker Outer Barrel in the
cleaning room on January 19, 2007. The CMS is a general-purpose
detector, part of the Large hadron Collider (LHC), and is capable of
studying many aspects of proton collisions at 14 trillion electronvolts.
(Maximilien Brice/© 2012 CERN)
One module of the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) photon
spectrometer. There are 3,584 lead tungstate crystals on the first
module for the ALICE photon spectrometer. Lead tungstate crystals have
the optical transparency of glass combined with much higher density, and
can serve as scintillators, lighting up when when struck by an incoming
particle. (Maximilien Brice/© 2012 CERN) #
A scientist performs maintenance in the CERN LHC computing grid center
in Geneva, on October 3, 2008. This center is one of the 140 data
processing centers, located in 33 countries, taking part in the grid
processing project. More than 15 million Gigabytes of data produced from
the hundreds of millions of subatomic collisions in the LHC should be
collected every year. (Reuters/Valentin Flauraud) #
Precision work is performed on the semiconductor tracker barrel of the
ATLAS experiment, on November 11, 2005. All work on these delicate
components must be performed in a clean room so that impurities in the
air, such as dust, do not contaminate the detector. The semiconductor
tracker will be mounted in the barrel close to the heart of the ATLAS
experiment to detect the path of particles produced in proton-proton
collisions. (Maximilien Brice/© 2012 CERN) #
A major milestone in the assembly of the ATLAS experiment's inner
detector. The semiconductor tracker (SCT) and transition radiation
tracker (TRT) are two of the three major parts of the ATLAS inner
detector. Together, they will help determine trajectories of particle
collisions produced when the LHC is switched on. February 22, 2006. (Maximilien Brice/© 2012 CERN) #
The electromagnetic calorimeter, completely assembled, is a wall more
than 6 m high and 7 m wide, consisting of 3,300 blocks of scintillator,
fibre optics and lead. This huge wall will measure the energy of
particles produced in proton-proton collisions at the LHC when it is
started in 2008. Photons, electrons and positrons will pass through the
layers of material in these modules and deposit their energy in the
detector through a shower of particles. May 17, 2005. (Maximilien Brice/© 2012 CERN) #
The Linac2 (Linear Accelerator 2) at the European Organization for
Nuclear Research, CERN, in Meyrin, near Geneva, Switzerland, on
Thursday, October 16, 2008. The current accelerator Linac2, built in
1978 which will be replaced in 2013 by Linac4, separates hydrogen gas
into electrons and protons and provides protons beams to the LHC. (AP Photo/Keystone, Martial Trezzini) #
The first half of the Compact Muon Solenoid inner tracker barrel is
seen in this image consisting of three layers of silicon modules which
will be placed at the center of the CMS experiment. Laying close to the
interaction point of the 14 TeV proton-proton collisions, the silicon
used here must be able to survive high doses of radiation and a powerful
magnetic field without damage. October 19, 2006. (Maximilien Brice/© 2012 CERN) #
One of the end-cap calorimeters for the ATLAS experiment is moved using
a set of rails. This calorimeter will measure the energy of particles
that are produced close to the axis of the beam when two protons
collide. It is kept cool inside a cryostat to allow the detector to work
at maximum efficiency. February 16, 2007. (Claudia Marcelloni/© 2012 CERN) #
Michel Mathieu, a technician for the ATLAS collaboration, is cabling
the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter's first end-cap, before insertion
into its cryostat. Millions of wires are connected to the
electromagnetic calorimeter on this end-cap that must be carefully fed
out from the detector so that data can be read out. Every element on the
detector will be attached to one of these wires so that a full digital
map of the end-cap can be recreated. August 12, 2003. (Maximilien Brice/© 2012 CERN) #
Switches in the Control Room of the Large Hadron Collider at the
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, on April
5, 2012. On this day, the LHC shift crew declared "stable beams" as two 4
TeV proton beams were brought into collision at the LHC's four
interaction points. The collision energy of 8 TeV set a new world
record, and increased the machine's discovery potential considerably. (Reuters/Denis Balibouse) #
This image made available by CERN shows a typical candidate event
including two high-energy photons whose energy (depicted by red towers)
is measured in the Compact Muon Solenoid electromagnetic calorimeter.
The yellow lines are the measured tracks of other particles produced in
the collision. The pale blue volume shows the CMS crystal calorimeter
barrel. To cheers and standing ovations, scientists at the world's
biggest atom smasher claimed the discovery of a new subatomic particle
on July 4, 2012, calling it "consistent" with the long-sought Higgs
boson -- popularly known as the "God particle" -- that helps explain
what gives all matter in the universe size and shape. (AP Photo/CERN) #
Related links and information
Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia entry
Still Confused About the Higgs Boson? Read This - The Atlantic, July 6, 2012
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