Deep underground, close to Lake Geneva, at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, huge detectors sift through a stream of subatomic particles and collect gigantic volumes of data, which are analysed using powerful algorithms. Modern technologies are making the tiny particles that hold the cosmos together visible on a larger scale.
In 2012, a milestone in particle physics was achieved with the discovery of the Higgs boson particle. Scientists Robert Brout, François Englert and Peter Higgs had first predicted its existence back in the 1960s. According to the Standard Model of particle physics at the time, there should strictly speaking be no mass. Subatomic particles should move at the speed of light. Yet, as previously stated, they should be massless. The three researchers nevertheless developed the theory of the Higgs field. According to this theory, the Higgs field slows down the smallest particles – comparable with beads flying through honey – giving them inertia and therefore mass. 50 years later, the big breakthrough finally came. Protons were accelerated at virtually the speed of light in the LHC to allow them to collide. Higgs bosons broke free from the Higgs field and it was thus possible to measure them and prove that they actually exist. And so the existence of matter was proven. Higgs and Englert were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013 for their theory. Brout had died in 2011.
The research conducted at CERN involves scientific work with breathtaking dimensions. Established in 1954, the research organisation receives almost 1 billion euros in funding every year from 22 member states and currently employs more than 2,500 scientists. Over 12,000 guest scientists from all over the world work on CERN experiments. The world’s largest laboratory for particle physics operates a network of several accelerators which prepare various particles for a wide range of experiments. These include muons for researching the structure of the proton, heavy ions for creating states of matter and radioactive ion beams for observing exotic nuclei.
The world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator is the LHC. It is located around 100 metres underground in a circular tunnel with a circumference of 27 kilometres. The LHC uses strong electric fields in order to transmit energy to particle beams and guides the beams through the system using magnetic fields. The particles acquire more and more acceleration energy until they travel around the LHC at close to the speed of light – 11,245 times per second. When they collide, four huge detectors – CMS, ATLAS, ALICE and LHCb – record what happens.