CERN now instead of hydrogen at the LHC collisions of lead ions from the core

The Institute has succeeded in a big bumper in just four days to replace the medium between the last beam of the first beam of protons and ions from the core of lead

Four days, so just be that in large hadron Collider (LHC) experts to replace the medium. The last beam of protons ("peeled" hydrogen atoms) launched on 4 November and the first test beam in which the lead ions (atomic nuclei lead) fired during the night between Saturday and Sunday 30 minutes after midnight, they emerge from the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN).

Steady state in which scientists can study the effects of peaceful collision of lead nuclei scored in the Monday, the 8th November at 11:20 hrs CET.

- The speed at which we move on to the lead ions is actually a sign of maturity of the LHC - commented on the news of CEO CERN Rolf Heuer. The machine works like urice after only a few months of routine work.

Accelerator that works with cores instead of lead with hydrogen nuclei in the beam - something completely different. It was necessary to establish a new type of beam sources, generators and small accelerators, where the bundles are introduced into the largest, 27-km long circular tube LHC, to the management of collisions of beams that are at the LHC are moving in opposite directions. The packets are now, instead of a single proton, and clusters of 82 particles. It is anticipated that the core smoothly be accelerated to full energy of 2.87 teraelektronvolti (TeV).

Three experiments will be accompanied by collisions, known detectors ATLAS and CMS and ALICE detector, which was constructed with the main objective to study collisions of lead core right - Alice now performs under the spotlight. It is precisely their physicists, among whose leaders in Zagreb and Professor Guy Paic, yet 2009th published the first scientific papers on the results of the first collision of proton beams.

- It is impressive that the LHC smoothly accommodate the new medium, and immediately was able to follow a much larger number of traces resulting from collisions of lead core - published Jurgen Schukraft, spokesman for the ALICE experiment.

LHC is practically year-round "schedule, " Experiments with beams of protons de facto ended a month ago, and now will be conducted experiments with lead ions up to the sixth December, when the accelerator is stopped for technical reasons. Working LHC will continue from February 2011. year.

Unlike the experiments with hydrogen nuclei, where required as yet unknown particles that have occurred in the first Big Bang, ALICE detector is designed to solve the mysteries of physics in the quark-gluonskoj plasma. It was insufficiently studied the state of matter in which the smaller particles, quarks, accumulate in the large, such as protons and neutrons. Trying to comprehend the phenomenon of so-called. strong interaction between protons, which, despite being positively charged, holds together the nuclei of atoms.