Taking a closer look at LHC
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"If there's one thing to do, it's to engage in education". George Charpak (Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992). |
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CERN celebrates 70 years of scientific discovery and innovation.
Large Hadron Collider is the world’s highest energy particle accelerator. LHC (situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border) generates the greatest amount of information that has ever been produced in an experiment before. It is aimed to reveling some of the most fundamental secrets of nature.
Despite the enormous amount of information available about this topic, it is not easy for non-specialists to know where the data come from.
Basically, the purpose of this Website is to help introducing and informing the wider public about the LHC experiment, and some simple physical calculations which take place in all particle accelerators. They can also be used in secondary school classrooms, and, to a lesser extent, to primary school pupils and teachers. in order to stimulate the curiosity of the students, help them understand the physical concepts of LHC, and they can also be used as an example of the relationship between the cold equations of Physics on the blackboard and the exciting scientific research.
Through several sections and many sub-sections (CERN, LHC, PHYSICS at the LHC, Detectors, Standard Model, Education, Links, News ... ) we approach the contents that we believe should be known by non-specialists who are interested in Particle Physics, CERN and the LHC.
It is important to point out that the calculations that appear on this website are adapted to secondary school level, and in most cases, although they may be useful, they are simply approximations of the correct results.
We also present below some of the most recent news items (which we believe to be relevant to the purpose of our website) that feature CERN, and the LHC in particular. In the News section section you will find news from previous years.
This Website has received the permissión of CERN to use informations, data, texts and images from CERN websites. The use on this Website of the various materials from publications produced by CERN is strictly in accordance with CERN's terms of use.
The rest of images, graphs, etc., not belonging to the authors of this website, have been taken as "fair use" qualification, but, please, let us know if that is not the case, and they will be removed immediately.
We show below some facts that are of special relevance, appearing in the different Sections of this website the development of the concepts and contents that we consider to be of interest.
If you are not familiar with the basic concepts of particle physics, we recommend that you first visit the different sections of the general menu of our website.
In the Referencias Section you can find many articles and books dealing with different aspects of Particle Physics, CERN and the LHC. In addition, in this other Section you can consult the articles that the authors of this website have published on these issues with an essentially outreaching intention.
We also present below some of the most recent news items (which we believe to be relevant to the purpose of our website) that feature CERN, and the LHC in particular. In the More News section you will find news from previous years.
CERN highlights en 2024
Tomado de CERN WEBSITE
Run 3
Year 2022, starts LHC Run 3 after a vast programme of works completed during Long Shutdown 2 (LS2). Protons collide at higher energies (13.6 TeV compared to 13 TeV) and with higher luminosities (containing up to 1.8 × 1011 protons per bunch compared to 1.3–1.4 × 1011 ) than in Run 2.
This third experimental phase runs until the end of 2025.
A few weeks after the start of Run3, several records were already reached.
Some of these are:
.- energy with Pb ions: 6.8 Z TeV (or 2.76 TeV/nucleon)
.- peak luminosity: 2.5·1034
.- pile-up (almost simultaneous collision points) > 100
.- stored energy per beam: ~ 400 MJ
Current schedule foresees Long Shutdown 3 (LS3) to start in 2026, one year later than in the previous schedule, and to last for three instead of 2.5 years (taken from CERN Courier).
Energy
In 2012 protons at LHC were running with a beam energy of 4 TeV per proton (8 TeV in collision). At the beginning of 2013, the LHC collided protons with lead ions before going into a long maintenance stop (LS1) until the end of 2014. Running was resumed in 2015 with increased collision 6,5 TeV per proton (13 TeV in collision) and another increase in luminosity. Its maximum total energy of 14 TeV is very close, and after the Long Shutdown 2 (LS2) (2019-2022), in Run 3, an energy of 6,8 TeV per proton (13,6 TeV in collision) has been already reached (very close to the designed maximum initial energy, 7 TeV per proton)
Higgs Boson
One of its main goal has already been achieved in the first phase of operation: to find the Higgs boson.
The Nobel prize in Physics 2013 was awarded to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider."
The ATLAS and CMS collaborations announced their discovery of the particle at CERN on 4 July 2012. This result was further elucidated in 2013.
Candidate Higgs Decay to four muons recorded by ATLAS in 2012 (Image: ATLAS/CERN).
Interesting articles about the Higgs Boson on the tenth anniversary of its discovery are the following:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01819-4
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R E C E N T N E W S We present here some of the most recent and interesting news, according to our criteria, about Particle Physics that have CERN (and the LHC, in particular) as a protagonist. |
Advancing cancer therapy with next-gen radionuclides.
January 2026
The PRISMAP programme, coordinated by CERN, has supplied 159 radionuclide batches for cancer research over the past five years.
The main objective of PRISMAP – the European medical radionuclides programme, coordinated by CERN – was therefore to provide access to novel, high-purity radionuclides, facilitating the research phase for targeted medical treatments.
ALICE solves mystery of light-nuclei survival.
Dec 2025
Researchers at ALICE studied deuterons (a proton and a neutron bound together) and antideuterons (an antiproton and an antineutron) that were produced in high-energy collisions of protons at the LHC. They found evidence that, rather than emerging directly from the collisions, nearly 90% of the deuterons and antideuterons were created by the nuclear fusion of particles emerging from the collision, with one of their constituent particles coming from the decay of a short-lived particle.
Illustration of how deuterons can be produced from a high-energy collision at the LHC (Image: CERN).
These findings not only explain a long-standing puzzle in nuclear physics but could have far-reaching implications for astrophysics and cosmology. Light nuclei and antinuclei are also produced in interactions between cosmic rays and the interstellar medium, and they may be created in processes involving the dark matter that pervades the Universe. By building reliable models for the production of light nuclei and antinuclei, physicists can better interpret cosmic-ray data and look for possible dark-matter signals.
The ALICE observation provides a solid experimental foundation for modelling light-nuclei formation in space. It shows that most of the light nuclei observed are not created in a single thermal burst, but rather through a sequence of decays and fusions that occur as the system cools.
Deciphering the heavyweights of the tetraquark world.
Dec 2025
To date, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN has discovered 80 particles. The LHC’s most striking discoveries is the confirmation of exotic hadrons composed of four or five quarks.
The exact nature of these exotic hadrons is far from established.
In a paper published today in the journal Nature, the CMS collaboration has reported the first measurement of the quantum properties of a family of three “all-charm” tetraquarks.
Illustration of a tetraquark composed of two charm quarks and two charm antiquarks (Image CERN).
... and to know what is coming see HL-LHC: High Luminosity and also The Future Circular Collider.
Professor Mark Thomson selected as the new Director-General of CERN from 2026.
Nov, 2024
The CERN selected British physicist Mark Thomson as the Organization’s next Director-General. The appointment will be formalised at the December session of the Council and Professor Thomson’s five-year mandate will begin on 1 January 2026.
Professor Thomson is currently the Executive Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in the United Kingdom and a Professor of Experimental Particle Physics at the University of Cambridge. He has dedicated much of his career to CERN, where he initially contributed to precision measurements of the W and Z bosons in the 1990s, as part of the OPAL experiment at CERN’s Large Electron–Positron Collider. At CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), he has been a member of the ATLAS collaboration.
Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director General until the end of 2025.
At its 195th Session (Nov 2019), the CERN Council selected Fabiola Gianotti, as the Organization’s next Director-General, for her second term of office. Gianotti’s new five-year term of office goes from 1 January 2021 to Decembrer 2025.
(Image CERN)
This is the first time in CERN’s history that a Director-General has been appointed for a full second term.
IMPORTANT NOTICE
For the bibliography used when writing each Section in this Website please go to the References Section
We reiterate that the calculations that you will be finding in this Website are adapted from the Physics of Secondary School and in most cases they are just very simple approaches to the correct results.
Besides the Sections of this Website, it may be interesting to take a look at other documents or websites which give simple description of Particle Physics. For example: An Introduction To Particle Physics or A brief introduction to Particle Physics or other ones that you can find in the section Education of this website. Please note that some of these documents or websites are not up to date, but we believe that they still provide good information to get started in particle physics.
We insist that this Website has received the permissión of CERN to use informations, data, texts and images from CERN websites. The use on this Website of the various materials from publications produced by CERN is strictly in accordance with CERN's terms of use.
The rest of images, graphs, etc., not belonging to the authors of this website, have been taken as "fair use" qualification, but, please, let us know if that is not the case, and they will be removed immediately.
A Glossary with an alphabetical list of particle physics terms is included in the last section of this website.
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AUTHORS Xabier Cid Vidal, PhD in experimental Particle Physics for Santiago University (USC). Research Fellow in experimental Particle Physics at CERN from January 2013 to Decembre 2015. He was until 2022 linked to the Department of Particle Physics of the USC as a "Juan de La Cierva", "Ramon y Cajal" fellow (Spanish Postdoctoral Senior Grants), and Associate Professor. Since 2023 is Senior Lecturer in that Department.(ORCID). Ramon Cid Manzano, until his retirement in 2020 was secondary school Physics Teacher at IES de SAR (Santiago - Spain), and part-time Lecturer (Profesor Asociado) in Faculty of Education at the University of Santiago (Spain). He has a Degree in Physics and a Degree in Chemistry, and he is PhD for Santiago University (USC) (ORCID). |
CERN CERN Experimental Physics Department CERN and the Environment |
LHC |
IMPORTANT NOTICE
For the bibliography used when writing this Section please go to the References Section
© Xabier Cid Vidal & Ramon Cid - rcid@lhc-closer.es | SANTIAGO (SPAIN) |
