CERN ABOUT TO KICK OFF THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER ON A THIRD RUN

The Large Hadron Collider will embark on a 3rd run to discover extra-cosmic secrets

Ten years ago, scientists were able to discover the Higgs boson and, with the help of the Large Hadron Collider, helped to understand our universe. They did it again in 2018 and gained new insights into protons. Now, with a new set of questions, they plan to restart the particle accelerator this month to potentially better understand cosmic unknowns like dark matter. "This is a particle that has answered some questions for us and given us many others," says Dr. Sarah Demers, Professor of Physics at Yale University.

The Higgs boson was first observed when scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) were spinning at nearly the speed of light and colliding with particles. They did it with the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world: the Large Hadron Collider. Since 1964, physicists have theorized that this particle existed, but it took nearly 50 years to find evidence. Scientists believe the Higgs field has created a tenth of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang and without it, stars, planets, and life would not exist. have jumped up.

The proof of the existence of the Higgs boson was an important milestone in basic physics, and Dr.Francois Englert and Dr. Peter Higgs received a Nobel Prize in Physics. Despite scientific achievements, the work to understand how the universe works are far from over. The collider completed a second experimental run in 2018 that provided new insights into proton structures. and how the Higgs boson decays. And after more than three years of maintenance and updates, the collider will launch again on Tuesday, this time with triple the data, longer intense beams, and a total of allowing for more studies.

"There has to be more because we can't explain a lot of things around us," said Demers, who is also working on the third run at CERN. , we're talking about 96 percent of the universe being really big. What Demers is referring to is dark matter, which is an invisible matter thought to exist based on observations of the cosmos, and dark energy, which is driving the accelerated expansion of the universe. Expect the next run to provide information about the elusive but overwhelming majority of our cosmos. but it can also help unravel some of the greatest mysteries of the universe as a whole, e.g. B. how it came about, what it is like, and what its ultimate destiny might be. Run 3 is expected to last for the next four years, and scientists are already beginning work on Run 4, which is scheduled to begin in 2030.