Columbia to Build Upgrades for Large Hadron Collider, the World's Largest Atom Smasher

[Judi Lynn]

The National Science Foundation awards $75 million to a Columbia-led team to support major improvements necessary to advance high-energy physics.

By Carla Cantor
April 01, 2020

Columbia University will lead a team of scientists in an effort to enhance the capabilities of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator designed to produce some of nature’s tiniest and most exotic subatomic particles by smashing protons together.

The multi-year, $75 million project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), will allow the ATLAS detector to take full advantage of the increase in luminosity, or rate of collisions, planned for an upgrade of the LHC accelerator, operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN.

The LHC—which is housed underground, deep beneath the international border separating France from Switzerland—accelerates protons in a ring of superconducting magnets almost to the speed of light before they collide and explode, giving rise to particles possibly never seen before.

"These improvements will enable scientists to push the boundaries of discovery, increasing the likelihood of revealing entirely new phenomena—from extra dimensions of space to the building blocks of dark matter," said Michael Tuts, professor of physics at Columbia University and principal investigator on the project. "They will open up a new window on particle physics, bringing us closer to decoding how the universe truly works."

More:
https://news.columbia.edu/news/-large-hadron-collider-ATLAS-protons-physics