CERN’s big bang simulator makes first proton collisions

Last night in a tunnel near Geneva, Switzerland, CERN physicists smashed proton beams together for the first time in the Large Hedron Collider (LHC). The LHC was restarted  last Friday after the massive machine was taken down for repairs in September 2008.

Since the restart, scientists have made rapid progress. They began circulating beams around the 17-mile (27 km) long ring alternately in one direction and then the other at the injection energy of around 450 billion electron volts per beam. The beam lifetime has gradually been increased to 10 hours, and as of Nov. 23, beams have been circulating simultaneously in opposite directions. 

The LHC, located 328 feet (100 meters) beneath the French-Swiss border, consists of four main detectors in giant cathedral-size rooms. Construction lasted eight years at a cost of about $6 billion.

Next comes an intense commissioning phase to further increase the beam acceleration and intensity. Forgoing any mishaps, CERN anticipates the LHC should reach 1.2 teraelectronvolts (TeV) per beam and have significant quantities of collision data for the experiments’ calibrations by late December.

“It’s a great achievement to have come this far in so short a time,” said CERN director general Rolf Heuer, in a press statement. “But we need to keep a sense of perspective – there’s still much to do before we can start the LHC physics programme.”

The main goal of the project is to recreate conditions moments after the big bang 13.7 billion years ago.