CERN Begins Major Upgrade of World's Largest Particle Accelerator

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has commenced its most significant upgrade since the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was built. Teams in Geneva have begun dismantling 28 superconducting magnets, some installed between 2005 and 2007, to make way for a much more powerful generation of technology. CERN Director-General Mark Thomson marked the start of the work by descending into the accelerator tunnel.

The LHC, a 27-kilometer ring buried beneath the Swiss-French border, accelerates particles to near light speed for collisions. Thousands of magnets steer these beams, with "inner triplets" crucial for focusing the beams just before impact. Increasing beam density, known as "luminosity," enhances collision rates, providing more data and a greater chance to detect rare phenomena beyond the Standard Model of physics.

The upgrade, named HiLumi, will replace current niobium-titanium magnets with new ones made of niobium-tin, capable of producing a magnetic field 40% stronger at 11.3 Tesla. These will be installed around the ATLAS and CMS experiments, significantly boosting luminosity. The project aims to increase the total data collected by the LHC tenfold over its lifespan. The first new magnet is expected in early 2029, with 16 cryostats and 28 cryogenic assemblies to be installed.

This upgrade occurs during the LHC's third long shutdown, with the enhanced accelerator anticipated to resume operation around the early 2030s. CERN is also exploring a future 90-kilometer circular collider, a multi-billion dollar project awaiting a final decision. "After almost twenty years of operation, these magnets are making way for a new, even more powerful generation," stated Markus Zerlauth, HiLumi project manager. Physicists hope this will enable further investigation into dark matter, the matter-antimatter imbalance, and the potential discovery of new particles.

Israel became a full member of CERN in 2014, the first non-European nation to achieve this status. Researchers from the Weizmann Institute, Technion, and Tel Aviv University are involved in the ATLAS experiment, which was instrumental in the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson. The LHC began operation in 2008 but suffered a magnet malfunction shortly after, causing a year-long shutdown. The Higgs boson discovery in 2012 led to the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for Peter Higgs and François Englert.