ABSTRACT

Particle
Accelerators. Its
designing, Particles
in nucleus.
Superconductors
as magnets, Dark
matter, Dark

LHC: LARGE HADRON energy, Higgs

Boson
COLLIDER Karthi Devendra
Welcome to LHC!

A small tour toward accelerating science:

Introduction:
LHC is nothing but the most power full particle accelerator ever built.
It was built by CERN in a span of 10 years in collaboration with
hundreds of countries.

It is a tunnel beneath France and Switzerland border, which is almost

around 27KM in circumference at a depth of 574ft.
What is the purpose of LHC?
This largest machine on earth was built to study the sub-atomic
particles, how quantum mechanics work, how does the quark-gluon
plasma give rise to the particles that constitute the matter of our
Universe, secrets of dark matter and dark energy, evidence for the
supersymmetry theory and most importantly to find the existence of
Higg’s boson and much more.

Discoveries of LHC
In 2012 LHC created history with its proof for the existence of the God
particle i.e., Higgs Boson, with the help of ATALS and CMS detectors.

Higgs Boson is a
elementary particle from the standard model of particle physics,
which is responsible for the mass matter in the Higgs field.

LHC has also recorded a temperature of 7 trillion Fahrenheit, which is

hotter than any know stuff in the entire galaxy.

Particle Accelerator:
A particle accelerator is a piece of device that accelerates a
charged particle using magnetic fields and also contains it inside the
magnetic field know as magnetic beams, for e.g., LHC. There are
basically two kinds of accelerator 1) Electrostatic and 2)
Electrodynamic. In LHC we use electrodynamic or
electromagnetic accelerators, on the other hand, use changing
electromagnetic fields to accelerate particles. Since in these types
of the particles can pass through the same accelerating field
multiple times, the output energy is not limited by the strength of the
accelerating field.

Accelerators Design:
The collider tunnel contains two adjacent parallel
beamlines (or beam pipes) each containing a beam, which travel in
opposite directions around the ring.

The beams intersect at four points

around the ring, which is where the particle collisions take place.
Some 1,232 dipole magnets keep the beams on their circular path,
while an additional 392 quadrupole magnets are used to keep the
beams focused, with stronger quadrupole magnets

Figure 1 Quadrupole magnets from Fermilab

close to the intersection points in order to maximize the chances of
interaction where the two beams cross. Magnets of higher multipole
orders are used to correct smaller imperfections in the field
geometry. In total, about 10,000 superconducting magnets are
installed, with the dipole magnets having a mass of over 27
tons. Approximately 96 tons of superfluid helium-4 is needed to keep
the magnets, made of copper-clad niobium-titanium, at
their operating temperatures of 1.9 K (−271.25 °C), making the LHC
the largest cryogenic facility in the world at liquid helium
temperature. LHC uses 470 tons of Nb–Ti superconductor.

Particles in Nucleus:
There are a total of 6 quark particles. They are nothing but
elementary particles given by the standard model of particle
physics. Now these quarks combine together in different
combinations to give hadrons or baryons or both. Out of this up
quark and down quark are held in association by the nuclear strong
force in certain stable combinations of hadrons called baryons to
give proton and neutron.

Figure 2 Quarks
combining to give proton.

Two up quarks and one down quark combines to gives proton

(2/3+2/3-1/3) and one up quark and two down quarks combines to
give neutron (2/3-1/3-1/3). The nuclear strong force extends far
enough from each baryon so as to bind the neutrons and protons
together against the repulsive electrical force between the positively
charged protons. The nuclear strong force has a very short range,
and essentially drops to zero just beyond the edge of the nucleus.
The collective action of the positively charged nucleus is to hold the
electrically negative charged electrons in their orbits about the
nucleus.

Superconductors as Magnets:
A Superconducting Magnets is an electromagnets made from coils
of superconducting wires. They must be cooled to cryogenic
temperatures during operation. In its superconducting state the wire
has no electrical resistance and therefore can conduct much
larger electric currents than ordinary wire, creating intense magnetic

fields. Superconducting magnets

can produce greater magnetic field than all but the strongest non-
superconducting electromagnets and can be cheaper to operate
because no energy is dissipated as heat in the windings. Now world’s
most powerful and largest superconducting magnets are present in

LHC. Figure 3 Cross section of LHS's

superconducting magnets
Dark Matter:
Dark Matter is a form of matter thought to account for
approximately 85% of the matter in the universe and about 27% of its
total mass-energy density. Its presence is implied in a variety
of astrophysical observations,

including gravitational effects that cannot be explained by

accepted theories of gravity unless more matter is present than can
be seen. For this reason, most experts think that dark matter is
abundant in the universe and that it has had a strong influence on its
structure and evolution. Dark matter is called dark because it does
not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means
it does not absorb, reflect, or emit electromagnetic rotation, and is
therefore difficult to detect.
Evidence of Dark Matter, whenever we look into the sky with some
advance and potentially high telescope, we often see some part or
entire galaxy is mirrored. After a great effort scientists found that its
nothing but gravitational lensing. For gravitational lensing there must
be some thing with huge mass to bend light rays coming from distant
objects. As this matter is not detectable and they are not interacting
with electromagnetic field they are very difficult to be studied.
Galaxies are billions of light years long and the stars revolving at the
edge of the galaxy must have fled of because of centrifugal force
(This happens with satellite’s and we call this Sling shot.), but they
won’t, and we blame once again blame dark matter for this as a
possible victim.

And few more

phenomena’s are involved in this evidence of dark matter like CDM,
collisions of galaxies, cosmic microwave background, interactions
among galaxies, etc.
Dark Energy:
Dark energy is the name given to the mysterious force that is causing
the rate of expansion of our universe to accelerate over time, rather
than to slow down. That is contrary to what one might expect from a
universe that began in a Big Bang. Astronomers in the 20th century
learned the universe is expanding. They thought the expansion might
continue forever, or eventually – if the universe had enough mass
and therefore enough self-gravity – reverse and cause a Big Crunch.
Now, in early 21st century cosmology, that idea has evolved. The
universe is seen as expanding faster today than billions of years ago.
What could be causing the rate of expansion to increase?
Astronomers now sometimes speak of a repulsive forces as a possible
way to understand it.

Up until the late 1990s, most cosmologists believed the universe did
not have enough mass to cause a Big Crunch. In particular, data
acquired by the 2DF GALAXY REDSHIFT SURVEY seemed to confirm
the universe would expand forever, albeit at an ever-slowing rate as
the universe’s own mass and own gravity tried to pull it back.
Higgs Boson (The GOD particle !!!):

The Higgs Boson is an elementary

particle in the standard model of particle physics produced by the
Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. It is named
after physicist peter higgs who in 1964 along with five other
scientists proposed the Higgs mechanism to explain why some
particles have mass. (Particles acquire mass in several ways, but a
full explanation for all particles had been extremely difficult).

This mechanism required that a spinless particle known as

a boson should exist with properties as described by the Higgs
Mechanism theory. This particle was called the Higgs boson. A
subatomic particle with the expected properties was discovered in
2012 by the ATLAS and CMS (They both are detectors in
LHC) experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. The new particle was
subsequently confirmed to match the expected properties of a
Higgs boson.
Magnetic Quench Accident in LHC:
On 19 September 2008, a magnet quench occurred in about 100
bending magnets in sectors 3 and 4, where an electrical fault led to
a loss of approximately six tons of superfluid liquid helium (the
magnets' cryogenic coolant), which was vented into the tunnel. The
escaping vapors expanded with explosive force, damaging a total
of 53 superconducting magnets and their mountings, and
contaminating the vacuum pipe, which also lost vacuum conditions.

What exactly happened is while ramping the current a resistive

zone developed because of a faulty electrical bus bar connection
between a dipole and quadrupole, which developed a reactive
voltage and that caused the magnets to quench. An electrical arc
developed and punctured the helium enclosure, leading to release
of helium into the insulation vacuum of the cryostat.

Magnetic quench is a rare event in superconducting magnets. This

is an abnormal termination of magnet operation that occurs when
part of the superconducting coil enters the normal (resistive) state.
This can occur because the field inside the magnet is too large, the
rate of change of field is too large (causing eddy currents and
resultant heating in the copper support matrix), or a combination of
the two. More rarely a defect in the magnet can cause a quench. In
LHC it happened because of faulty electrical bus bar
connection.

Practical Solutions:
1) Placing skilled and experienced electricians in work.
2) Bus- Bar connections can be made in parallel between dipole
and quadrupole magnets.
3) Use of efficient and quick quench detectors.
4) Helium escape valve can be vacuumed.
THANK YOU.