CERN sets date for first 7 TeV particle smashes in Large Hadron Collider

The world's most powerful atom smasher accelerated its proton beams to 3.5 TeV per beam on March 19, but no collisions were practiced then.

"Between now and March 30, the LHC team will be working with 3.5 TeV beams to commission the beam control systems and the systems that protect the particle detectors from stray particles. All these systems must be fully commissioned before collisions can begin," CERN said.

The LHC is to operate at half its design energy - 7 TeV - until late 2011, after which it will be shut down for about a year to then upgrade to its full design energy of 14 TeV.

By colliding particles in front of immensely powerful detectors, scientists hope to detect the Higgs boson, nicknamed the "God particle," which was hypothesized in the 1960s to explain how particles acquire mass. Discovering the particle could explain how matter appeared in the split-second after the Big Bang.

Experiments using the LHC were suspended in September 2008 shortly after a successful start, due to a malfunction of two superconducting magnets and a subsequent helium leak into the tunnel housing the device.

Work to repair and upgrade the collider after the breakdown cost almost $40 million and took more than a year. A system to protect it from such accidents, named the Quench Protection System, was installed, and the first beams were injected into the LHC on November 20 last year; Kazinform cites RIA Novosti. See www.en.rian.ru for full version.