First 'œsynch' test for Large Hadron Collider successful

William Atkins
Monday, 11 August 2008 21:44

Science - Energy

With this complicated process completed, which occurred near the end of July 2008, the next phase in the process, which began as stated earlier over the weekend on August 8, 2008, is the synchronization (“synching”) of the LHC with the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator.

To be successfully tested, the timing between the two machines (the SPS and the LHC) must be accurate to within a fraction of a nanosecond (where one nanosecond is equal to one billionth of one second).

Synch tests will continue into September to ensure that the entire machine is ready to accelerate and collide beams at energy of 5 TeV (tera electron volt, or one trillion electron volts) per beam, the target energy for 2008.

If all tests are successful, operators of the LHC will perform the first circulating beam on September 10, 2008, at the injection energy of 450 GeV (giga electron volts, or one billion electron volts), or 0.45 TeV.

According to the CERN press release (“CERN announces start-up date for LHC”), “Once stable circulating beams have been established, they will be brought into collision, and the final step will be to commission the LHC’s acceleration system to boost the energy to 5 TeV, taking particle physics research to a new frontier.”