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Science

CERN's Powerful New Linear Accelerator Fires Up Ahead of LHC Upgrade (newatlas.com) 50

Posted by BeauHD from the testing-testing-1-2-3 dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NewAtlas: After an almost two-year shutdown for repairs and upgrades, CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is beginning to fire back up for its next phase of probing the mysteries of physics. Its newest particle accelerator, Linac 4, completed its first test run over the past few weeks, with the potential to provide much more energetic beams than ever before. The LHC paused operations in December 2018, beginning a massive overhaul called the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). When it's fully finished and finally fired up in 2026, the upgraded facility will be seven times more powerful and will collect around 10 times more data in the following decade than it did during the previous run.

And now, the first incremental stage of this upgrade is coming online. The new linear accelerator, called Linac 4, has been installed and tested over the last few weeks. This device is the starting point for accelerating protons, which are then injected into the Proton Synchrotron (PS) Booster and onto the rest of the accelerator complex. Linac 4 replaces Linac 2, which was in operation at CERN for 40 years. As you might expect the new model is significantly more powerful, injecting particles into the PS Booster at energies up to 160 MeV -- much higher than Linac 2's 50 MeV. By the time these beams are boosted, they'll reach energies of 2 GeV, compared to the 1.4 GeV that Linac 2 was capable of. This extra energy is thanks to the fact that scientists can tweak Linac 4's beams in much more detail than its predecessor.

In the three weeks up to mid-August, Linac 4 was tested with low-energy beams of negative hydrogen ions, running only through the first part of the accelerator. On August 20, it was finally cranked right up to maximum energy, with beams accelerated through the whole machine. These were then sent into a "beam dump" at the end, a device that catches and absorbs the particles.
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CERN's Powerful New Linear Accelerator Fires Up Ahead of LHC Upgrade More

CERN's Powerful New Linear Accelerator Fires Up Ahead of LHC Upgrade

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  • Please hurry! (Score:3)

    by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Friday August 28, 2020 @12:14AM (#60448588)

    Can we confirm this is all a simulation and do a reset already? Surely we can change a few parameters to have a better 2020.

    • Like with a "God"... what's the difference?

      The simulation engine might itself be simulated too. And built by a god. Who himself is created by a god. Who himself is simulated. And so on.

      In the end, you always end up with the question: How is this useful?
      And hence: How can you tell?

      Because if we cannot tell, then by definition there is no difference. And it's a time waster, as it means nothing for your life.

      That said, of course if we *can* tell, it is extremely useful.
      But then ... what experiment would you pr

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Alcari ( 1017246 )
        There isn't such a thing as "Before the universe", because that's the same as "before time", which is a meaningless phrase. So while we will never find what caused the big bang, whether its someone typing "run" on their universe-sim-module, or a god snapping their noodly appendage, or someone in the distant future using a retro-active-universe-causer-9000(tm), we absolute CAN find out what happened since that moment. Ultimately, phrases like "before time" and "outside the universe" make no sense, but ther

      • We've been over this...
        https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
        Lol

  • You mean ... electrons?

    Who writes these articles?

    • Re:Negative hydrogen ions? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ulo ( 7182294 ) on Friday August 28, 2020 @02:36AM (#60448668)

      Who writes these articles?

      Probably people who know that negative hydrogen means hydrogen with more than one electron

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Kamasi ( 7182300 )

      You mean ... electrons?

      Who writes these articles?

      No, they probably mean a hydrogen atom with an extra electron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • Thanks. Came here WTF? but learned something.

      • Got that, but isn't that anion rather unstable? in the sense that that extra electron only needs a tiny bit of energy to fly away? presumably much less energy than the single electron of a neutral hydrogen atom would require to fly away to ~infinity (ionize). If that's the case, and they're feeding tremendous energy into this stream of anions, why don't the extra electrons get stripped off? (which would of course leave neutral hydrogen atoms behind, which couldn't be accelerated)

        To put this (perhaps) a li

    • So.. you're not aware that there are both positive and negative charged electrons. A positive charged electronic is generally called a positron, but it is still an electron.

      You should look up "Standard Model", "Lepton", "Elementary Particle" and such... at least before you make comments like this.

      What you learning in high school probably was a gross oversimplification of reality. High energy physics is a really fun topic and you should consider learning more about it if you like reading and commenting on th

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 )

        A positive charged electronic is generally called a positron, but it is still an electron.

        No, it isn't. It is electron's antiparticle. They are different things - for example a e/p pair will annihilate to produce gammas - something two electrons (or two positrons) cannot do.

        You should look up "Standard Model", "Lepton", "Elementary Particle" and such... at least before you make comments like this.

        You should try not only looking it up, but figuring out what it actually means.

        What you learning in high school probably was a gross oversimplification of reality.

        While you're at it, try to cut down on the cliche usage, remembering things without understanding what they are doesn't make you smarter.

        • No, it isn't. It is electron's antiparticle. They are different things - for example a e/p pair will annihilate to produce gammas - something two electrons (or two positrons) cannot do.

          Or the single electron is happily traveling forwards through space and time, is struck by a gamma ray coming from the future and that causes it to do a spectacular 180 and head off into the past.

          Or maybe the electron decides to start heading backwards in time and the rapid acceleration emits a gamma ray.

    • People who aren't as clueless and ignorant as you, obviously.

    • Who writes these articles?

      People who aren't ignorant. I often wish we'd get people like that to post on Slashdot too, instead we get you.

      Another ignorant post brought to you by BAReFO0t

    • Who writes these articles?

      Perhaps thos who understand the difference between a hydrogen anion and an electron? I know I am going out on a limb here, but that's probably it.

  • They're chargin' up their lazahs?

  • Dilbert builds a linear accelerator .... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Dilbert builds a linear accelerator ....

    https://dilbert.com/strip/1994... [dilbert.com]

  • Linac 4 replacing Linac 2? What king of versioning is that? Powers of 2?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kamasi ( 7182300 )

      Linac 4 replacing Linac 2? What king of versioning is that? Powers of 2?

      Linac 3 is only used to accelerate heavy ions, it was used together with Linac 2 and will still continue to work in parallel with Linac 4.

    • We went from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95.
    • They live in their own bubble

    • Linac 4 replacing Linac 2? What king of versioning is that?

      The versioning you use to replace and decommission Linac 2 while not be confused with the very much existing an operational Linac 3 sitting in the other room.
      https://home.cern/science/acce... [home.cern]

      I mean if there's one thing you can take home from TFS itself is that CERN has more than one particle accelerating machine.

  • At this point they're just tinkering with other people's money

    • Let's start by cutting military spending which is thousands of times bigger than the budget of all scientific research combined.

  • Are these guys not tired of running the same experiment over and over yet?

    • No, because everyone who's not clueless and ignorant like you knows that they are not running the same experiment over and over.

  • Or are we stuck with 25 + 1 dimensions and the 10^500 strong landscape?
  • Is this really the best year to test more powerful than ever particle accelerators?

  • So I said, "Super-collider? I just met her! ...And then they built the Super-collider.

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