First beam for Large Hadron Collider

An international collaboration of researchers today sent the first beam of protons zooming at nearly the speed of light around the 17-mile-long underground circular path of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's most powerful particle accelerator, located at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland.

The researchers also accelerated a second beam of protons through the path in the opposite direction, the goal being head-on collisions of protons that can offer clues to the origin of mass and new forces and particles in the universe. The second beam made one turn around the LHC.

Celebrations across the United States and around the world mark the LHC's first circulating beams, an occasion more than 15 years in the making. An estimated 10,000 people from 60 countries have helped design and build the accelerator and its massive particle detectors, including more than 1,700 scientists, engineers, students and technicians from 94 U.S. universities and laboratories supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science and the National Science Foundation.

UCR faculty Robert Clare, John Ellison, J. William Gary, Gail Hanson and Stephen Wimpenny, along with postdoctoral researchers and graduate students are involved in the LHC's Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, a large particle-capturing detector whose discoveries are expected to help answer questions such as: Are there undiscovered principles of nature? What is the origin of mass? Do extra dimensions exist? What is dark matter? How can we solve the mystery of dark energy? And how did the universe come to be?........