Mark off another key milestone in the construction of Europe’s massive Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator. In an underground ceremony today, CERN officials sealed the last interconnection point in LHC’s cryogenic system that will ultimately cool more than 1700 magnets to a temperature just 1.9 degrees above absolute zero.
We just have to wait a little while longer for that to happen.
Originally slated to begin operations in late 2007, the project has slipped to mid-2008, with launch estimates now ranging from early to late summer, depending on if all goes well as the magnets are cooled in stages, and beams of protons injected into the massive machine.
The cryogenic system completed today will carry about 10,000 tons of liquid nitrogen and 130 tons of liquid helium around the ring, cooling the magnets to their point of energy-saving superconductivity. That will in turn allow them to create powerful magnetic fields that will bend the protons around the particle accelerator’s 16.7 mile ring, before smashing into each other at close to the speed of light.
"This is a huge accomplishment," said Lyn Evans, LHC project leader.
"Now that it is done, we can concentrate on getting the machine cold and ready for physics."
The sooner the better. It’s perhaps the most complicated machine ever built; delays are to be expected, and patience required. But after
visiting the site last year, I’m as eager as the physicists involved to see results start coming in, and new discoveries (hopefully) being made.
LHC Completes the Circle [CERN]
(Image: Inspecting one of the 40,000 leak-tight welds in the LHC’s cryogenic system. Credit: CERN)