£70m power boost for Large Hadron Collider

epa03294642 (FILE) A file photo dated 22 March 2007 showing a press photographer taking a picture of the magnet core of the world's largest superconducting solenoid magnet (CMS, Compact Muon Solenoid) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)'s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particule accelerator, Geneva, Switzerland, 22 March 2007. Scientists have discovered a new type of particle consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson, which would explain why there is mass in the universe, the CERN laboratory announced in Geneva. However, the experiment's spokesperson Joe Icandela stressed that the results were preliminary. 'The implications are very significant and it is precisely for this reason that we must be extremely diligent in all of our studies and cross-checks.' British scientist Peter Higgs and others developed a theory explaining why matter exists, by introducing the Higgs boson as a key part of the mechanism that allows particles to gain mass. EPA/MARTIAL TREZZINI

Miranda Bryant

2 April 2013

The world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator is to undergo a major upgrade which scientists hope will open up a “new realm of particle physics”.

Engineers have started work to double the energy of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - which allows scientists to see how matter behaved a small fraction of a second after the Big Bang - in a bid to develop a more complete theory of how the universe works.

The LHC, which is located on the French-Swiss border, is an international project in which Britain plays a leading role.

As part of the upgrade, which will involve a total of 800 people and costing £70 million, 10,000 connectors will need to be replaced.

Dr Pippa Wells, a project leader on LHC’s Atlas experiment, told BBC News: “The past two years have been the most exciting in my time as a particle physicist. People are absolutely fired up. They’ve made one new discovery (the Higgs) and they want to make more discoveries with the new high energies that the upgrade will give us. We could find a new realm of particle physics”.

The LHC was built by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research from 1998 to 2008 in collaboration with more than 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 countries with the aim of enabling physicists to test the predictions of different theories.

By November last year it had already discovered two previously unobserved particles - including the monumental discovery of Higgs boson.

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