“Worlds Largest Science Facility Confronts Key Question: What Lies Beyond the Higgs Boson?” – The Hindu
CERN Shuts Down the Large Hadron Collider for Major Upgrades
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has officially commenced a long shutdown period for its Large Hadron Collider (LHC), with the upgrade process expected to continue until 2030. This significant downtime, termed Long Shutdown 3 (LS3), aims to enhance the collider’s capabilities, making it ten times more powerful than its previous iterations.
The LHC is renowned for its role in discovering the Higgs boson particle in 2012, a milestone that has driven the field of particle physics forward. However, as CERN prepares for this extensive upgrade, a pivotal question arises: what scientific inquiries will follow the Higgs discovery?
During this phase, CERN scientists and engineers will install advanced technology, including an upgraded ATLAS tracker featuring 178 square meters of silicon detectors, to improve the precision of particle collision measurements. The upgrade aims to enhance data collection for future experiments, allowing researchers to explore new physics beyond the Standard Model, potentially addressing enigmatic phenomena such as dark matter.
The collider first commenced operations in 2008 and has since provided invaluable insights into the fundamental components of matter. Following the upgrades during LS3, the LHC is anticipated to resume experiments in 2031, ushering in a new era of discovery in high-energy physics.
As the scientific community anticipates the inquiries that may follow after the Higgs boson, significant attention will also be directed toward addressing fundamental questions regarding the universes composition and the nature of forces at play on the smallest scales.
