The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest and highest-energy particle accelerator in existence, has been paralyzed for more than 10 days due to a small open hole in one of its beam tubes, according to the European Center for Particle Physics (CERN).
The research center that manages the infrastructure, based in Geneva (Switzerland), reported that the trigger for the failure was a disturbance in the Swiss electrical network after a tree fell on a high-voltage line in the town of Morges, located on the shores of Lake Geneva and about 50 kilometers from CERN.
Helium Expansion Hole
This disturbance caused the accelerator safety system to activate, which caused the superfluid helium that maintains the magnets in their electromagnetic field (which allows the beams to follow their circular trajectory) to cool down and become a gas.
“By turning into a gas, the helium expands and since it is in an enclosure and cannot escape very quickly, a pressure is exerted,” explained the physicist and deputy head of the LHC operation, Jörg Wenninger, in statements to Radio Television. Switzerland (RTS).
Because of this pressure, the small hole opened – one square millimeter – which caused a series of magnets to fail “essential for the operation of the accelerator”, he added.
The expert insisted that, although this failure did not directly affect the flow of the accelerator, it was necessary to identify the exact location of the hole and turn off the system to proceed to repair the affected part.
“You just have to cut the piece, take it out and put a new one, the problem is that it is in a complex environment and there are many different tubes that obviously should not be damaged,” said the physicist.
Big data loss from CERN
The repair, which will take several weeks, is the most complex that CERN experts have faced in the last 15 years. The center anticipates that normal accelerator activities will not resume until at least early September, which will affect ongoing research.
“We are going to lose about half of the data expected for this year,” the expert estimated. However, Wenninger was optimistic that this failure occurred “quite early” within the throttle’s operating period, which could be offset a few years later.
Edited with information from efe and CERN
