Vacuum leaks lead to more Hadron Collider delays

[Mari333]

21 Jul 2009 13:00 BST
The restart of the Large Hadron Collider has been pushed back further, following the discovery of vacuum leaks in two sectors of the experiment.

The world's largest particle collider is now unlikely to restart before mid-November, according to a Cern press statement. The project had been expected to start again in October.

To repair the leaks, which are from the helium circuit into the insulating vacuum, sectors 8-1 and 2-3 will have to be warmed from 80K to room temperature. Adjacent sub-sectors will act as 'floats', while the remainder of the surrounding sectors will be kept at 80K, Cern said in the statement. The repair work will not have an impact on the vacuum in the beam pipe.

The LHC experiment, which is designed to answer fundamental questions about the nature of matter, had to be halted nine days after it became fully operational last September, due to a leak of liquid helium. To be super-conductive, the experiment is cooled using liquid helium














http://news.zdnet.co.uk/emergingtech/0,1000000183,39689352,00.htm

[johnaries]

1. When I think of the hadron collider now, I always think of the book

"Blasphemy" by Douglas Preston. A really excellent book, although pretty scary when you think about it. I don't want to spoil it, but it involves Science and some Religious Right nuts.

[amerikat]

2. 80 Kelvin is about minus 315 degrees Fahrenheit. brrrrr!

That must be one hell of a high vacuum system on that machine.

[sam sarrha]

3. fundamental questions ... like at what speed does a proton expand to the size of the Universe..???

i cant wait to find out..

[Mari333]

4. its very exciting!!