Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

Why in news?

• Following a three-year break of scheduled maintenance, upgrades and pandemic delays, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is preparing to power up for its third, and most powerful yet, experimental period.

About Large Hadron Collider (LHC):

• The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider and the largest machine in the world.
• The aim of the LHC's detectors is to allow physicists to test the predictions of different theories of particle physics, including measuring the properties of the Higgs boson and searching for the large family of new particles predicted by supersymmetric theories, as well as other unsolved questions of physics.
• It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundreds of universities and laboratories, as well as more than 100 countries.
• It lies in a tunnel 27 kilometres in circumference and as deep as 175 metres beneath the France–Switzerland border near Geneva.
• The LHC primarily collides proton beams, but it can also use beams of heavy ions: lead–lead collisions and proton–lead collisions are typically done for one month per year.

What is Higgs Boson?

• In 2012, the Nobel-winning discovery of the Higgs boson(also known as 'God particle') validated the Standard Model of physics, which also predicts that about 60% of the time a Higgs boson will decay to a pair of bottom quarks.
• In 1960s Peter Higgs was the first person to suggest that this particle might exist.
• The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory which describes three of the four known fundamental forces (the electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions, and not including the gravitational force) in the universe, as well as classifies all known elementary particles.
• Scientists do not yet know how to combine gravity with the Standard Model.
• The Higgs particle is a boson. Bosons are thought to be particles which are responsible for all physical forces. Other known bosons are the photon, the W and Z bosons, and the gluon.

PRACTICE QUESTION

Consider the following statements regarding Large Hadron Collider:

1.It is the world’s largest particle collider.

2.It was built by European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a)1 only

(b)2 only

(c)Both 1 and 2

(d)Neither 1 nor 2

Answer