Scientists likely to switch particle smasher back on next summer

RIA Novosti
Tuesday, November 18, 2008

GENEVA, November 18 (RIA Novosti) – The world’s largest particle collider, which was shut down soon two weeks after being launched in September, will not be restarted until summer 2009, a Swiss daily said on Tuesday.

“It will most likely happen in the summer rather than in the spring,” the Tribune de Geneve quoted James Gillies, spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), as saying.

The official also said that the CERN Board of Directors will meet on December 12 to discuss repair work on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and to determine the possible date for the resumption of its operation.

On September 10, amid much hype, scientists fired the first beam of protons round the vast underground circular device, which is run from a control room in a suburb of Geneva on the French-Swiss border.

(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)

However, on September 24 the LHC was shut down due to a helium leak into the tunnel housing the device.

The collider, located 100 meters below ground with a circumference of 27 km, enables scientists to shoot sub-atomic particles round an accelerator ring at almost the speed of light, guided by a powerful field produced by superconductor magnets.

Particles are sent round the ring in extreme vacuum cooled by liquid helium to minus 271 degrees C.

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