LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator and it is ready to continue the journey of "a new era of physics," Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN, said at a press briefing on Thursday. "I want to see the first light in the dark universe. If that happens, then nature is kind to me."
The last two years have been spent upgrading and repairing the LHC. The particle collider now sports "new magnets, superior cryogenics, higher voltage and higher energy beams that will allow the machine to run at nearly double the collision energy of the first run," according to a press release from the Institute of Physics in London, England.
The circulating beams of protons in the LHC will start March 23. The collider is forecast to be running at 13 TeV by late May or early June. "One hope is that these higher energies will allow physicists to extend the search for new particles and to check previously untestable theories such as the elegant theory of supersymmetry which could extend the standard model of particle physics," according to the press release.
"This has been a massive effort by all the scientists and engineers at CERN to upgrade the LHC and its detectors and get it ready to operate at almost double the collision energies of the first run," Frances Saunders, president of the IOP, said. "As well as allowing greater study of the Higgs boson there is much anticipation amongst the physics community as to what else may be found at these higher energies, testing our theories and understanding of concepts such as supersymmetry and potentially giving greater insight into the 95 percent of the universe that is composed of dark matter and dark energy. We share the excitement of those who are lucky enough to be working with the most powerful particle accelerator in the world and wish them every good fortune in their hunt for new knowledge."
According to the press release: "The Institute of Physics is a leading scientific society. We are a charitable organization with a worldwide membership of more than 50,000, working together to advance physics education, research and application. We engage with policymakers and the general public to develop awareness and understanding of the value of physics and, through IOP Publishing, we are world leaders in professional scientific communications."
