Researchers at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., are set to be part of one of the most significant international scientific efforts in history.
The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, underground on the France-Switzerland border, is home to the ATLAS experiment, best known for the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.
It shut down on June 29 and when it comes back online in 2030, it will feature ATLAS detector components assembled in B.C.
“What scientists are trying to do is discover new fundamental particles and interactions that will unlock the secrets of the universe. But it’s a bit like looking for needles in a universe-sized haystack,” Bernd Stelzer, a professor in SFU’s department of physics, said in a release.
“The new detector components that we’re assembling right here at SFU greatly improve the chances of finding something new. That’s what makes it so exciting to be involved and what keeps pushing us forward.”
Canada is just one of dozens of countries involved in the project, but SFU researchers are taking a leading role.
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“The ATLAS experiment and the Large Hadron Collider are the energy frontier. It’s the only place where you can study the universe’s fundamental workings and discover new particles and new phenomena at the highest energies,” Stelzer added.
A total of 400 new petals, designed to record the billions of particles created in each collision, are being produced worldwide as part of the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider project. The SFU team will make about 100 petals over the next three years.
“Being able to build the first petals for production was a huge achievement for us,” Luise Poley, adjunct professor in SFU’s department of physics and project scientist at TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre, said.
“It will throw 10 times as many particles together as when it first started and 10 times as many particles means 10 times as many particles coming out.”
With the new petals, the more precise they are, the better the chance of spotting something new.
“There is a good chance that one of the particles we find at the Large Hadron Collider will actually turn out to be what Dark Matter is,” Poley said.
And while the answers may still be years away, the small pieces being made in B.C. could one day lead to some of the universe’s biggest discoveries.
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