Andrew Yee
February 22nd 06, 02:31 PM
Press Office
University of Liverpool
Liverpool, U.K.
Contact:
Samantha Martin, Assistant Press Officer
+44 (0) 151 794 2248
21 February 2006
Physicists Step Closer to Understanding Origin of the Universe
The world's largest particle detector is nearing completion following the
construction of its 'endcap' at the University of Liverpool.
Its assembly of advanced apparatus, at the University's Semiconductor
Detector Centre, has been a joint effort by physicists, engineers and
technicians from the Universities of Liverpool, Glasgow, Lancaster,
Manchester and Sheffield as well as Daresbury and Rutherford Laboratories.
The endcap is part of a semiconductor tracker (SCT) based at the heart of
ATLAS -- a giant particle detector the size of a five-storey building. The
SCT will become part of the world's largest particle accelerator -- the
Large Hadron Collider (LHC), based at CERN, the European Centre for
Particle Physics Research, in Switzerland.
The LHC is being constructed 100 metres underground in a 16-mile long
circular tunnel, running under the Franco-Swiss border. Inside the tunnel
two particle beams will be accelerated to extremely high energies, and
will crash into each other forty million times a second, creating a
snapshot of conditions that existed billionths of a second after the 'Big
Bang'. ATLAS, the culmination of 15 years' work by over 150 European
institutions, aims to find the Higgs particle that holds the key to
understanding the origin of mass.
Dr Neil Jackson, from the University's Department of Physics, explains:
"Using the LHC we are aiming to discover the Higgs particle and hoping to
find evidence for so-called Super-Symmetric particles, which we believe
could offer an explanation for the 'dark matter' in the universe. At
present the normal matter that we can see in the universe accounts for
only 5% of its mass. The origin of the missing mass is unknown, but
Super-Symmetric particles may account for some of it. If we discover these
particles then we are on our way to explaining why the universe is made
the way it is.
"At Liverpool we have tested 988 detector modules and assembled them into
one of two SCT endcaps. The modules will detect the reactions produced as
the accelerator collides billions of protons in the centre of ATLAS. The
particles produced in these collisions are recorded as they pass through
the endcaps. The collisions will be strong enough to recreate particles
and reactions that were present fractions of a second after the Big Bang."
The Big Bang theory is the dominant scientific theory about the origin of
the universe. It suggests that the universe was created sometime between
10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled
matter in all directions.
The conditions that will be reproduced at LHC will correspond to
approximately 1/10,000,000,000 of a second after the 'Big Bang' when the
temperature was 1,000,000,000,000,000 degrees. Large detectors will
electronically register the movement and position of charged particles
allowing physicists to analyse the reactions that created them.
The endcap will begin its journey to Switzerland later this month. Dr
Jackson added: "We have to be extremely careful that the endcap we have
constructed does not become damaged on its journey to Switzerland. We have
just completed a trial run of the journey, using a dummy load to represent
the endcap. Accelerometers and position-sensitive detectors were
positioned on the transport frame to monitor the machine and we tested
driving conditions with emergency stops, sleeping policemen, gradients and
motorway driving. The results of the test were very encouraging."
University of Liverpool
Liverpool, U.K.
Contact:
Samantha Martin, Assistant Press Officer
+44 (0) 151 794 2248
21 February 2006
Physicists Step Closer to Understanding Origin of the Universe
The world's largest particle detector is nearing completion following the
construction of its 'endcap' at the University of Liverpool.
Its assembly of advanced apparatus, at the University's Semiconductor
Detector Centre, has been a joint effort by physicists, engineers and
technicians from the Universities of Liverpool, Glasgow, Lancaster,
Manchester and Sheffield as well as Daresbury and Rutherford Laboratories.
The endcap is part of a semiconductor tracker (SCT) based at the heart of
ATLAS -- a giant particle detector the size of a five-storey building. The
SCT will become part of the world's largest particle accelerator -- the
Large Hadron Collider (LHC), based at CERN, the European Centre for
Particle Physics Research, in Switzerland.
The LHC is being constructed 100 metres underground in a 16-mile long
circular tunnel, running under the Franco-Swiss border. Inside the tunnel
two particle beams will be accelerated to extremely high energies, and
will crash into each other forty million times a second, creating a
snapshot of conditions that existed billionths of a second after the 'Big
Bang'. ATLAS, the culmination of 15 years' work by over 150 European
institutions, aims to find the Higgs particle that holds the key to
understanding the origin of mass.
Dr Neil Jackson, from the University's Department of Physics, explains:
"Using the LHC we are aiming to discover the Higgs particle and hoping to
find evidence for so-called Super-Symmetric particles, which we believe
could offer an explanation for the 'dark matter' in the universe. At
present the normal matter that we can see in the universe accounts for
only 5% of its mass. The origin of the missing mass is unknown, but
Super-Symmetric particles may account for some of it. If we discover these
particles then we are on our way to explaining why the universe is made
the way it is.
"At Liverpool we have tested 988 detector modules and assembled them into
one of two SCT endcaps. The modules will detect the reactions produced as
the accelerator collides billions of protons in the centre of ATLAS. The
particles produced in these collisions are recorded as they pass through
the endcaps. The collisions will be strong enough to recreate particles
and reactions that were present fractions of a second after the Big Bang."
The Big Bang theory is the dominant scientific theory about the origin of
the universe. It suggests that the universe was created sometime between
10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled
matter in all directions.
The conditions that will be reproduced at LHC will correspond to
approximately 1/10,000,000,000 of a second after the 'Big Bang' when the
temperature was 1,000,000,000,000,000 degrees. Large detectors will
electronically register the movement and position of charged particles
allowing physicists to analyse the reactions that created them.
The endcap will begin its journey to Switzerland later this month. Dr
Jackson added: "We have to be extremely careful that the endcap we have
constructed does not become damaged on its journey to Switzerland. We have
just completed a trial run of the journey, using a dummy load to represent
the endcap. Accelerometers and position-sensitive detectors were
positioned on the transport frame to monitor the machine and we tested
driving conditions with emergency stops, sleeping policemen, gradients and
motorway driving. The results of the test were very encouraging."