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Mini Big Bangs - UK scientists celebrate as LHC achieves first lead ion collisions
UK scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider's (LHC) 'ALICE' experiment at CERN are celebrating the LHC's latest achievement which opens up an entirely new avenue of exploration. The successful collision of lead ions in the accelerator at record energies allows matter to be probed as it would have been in the first moments of the Universe's existence. This new phase of the LHC's programme comes after seven months of successfully colliding protons at high energies.
The UK work on the ALICE experiment is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) with physicists from the University of Birmingham playing a key role. "We are thrilled with the achievement!" said Dr David Evans from the University of Birmingham. "The collisions generated mini Big Bangs and the highest temperatures and densities ever achieved in an experiment."
"This process took place in a safe, controlled environment generating incredibly hot and dense sub-atomic fireballs with temperatures of over ten trillion degrees, a million times hotter than the centre of the Sun", Dr Evans added. "At these temperatures even protons and neutrons, which make up the nuclei of atoms, melt resulting in a hot dense soup of quarks and gluons known as a Quark-Gluon Plasma. By studying this plasma, physicists hope to learn more about the Strong Force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. The Strong Force not only binds the nuclei of atoms together but is responsible for 98% of their mass. I now look forward to studying a tiny piece of what the universe was made of just a millionth of a second after the Big Bang."
"I am so excited that the ALICE experiment is finally going to be able to glimpse lead ion collisions from the LHC", said Birmingham University PhD student, Zoe Matthews. "The environment the collisions will create is mind-blowing, and observing them will offer up insights about the earliest moments in our universe's life. I feel so lucky to be a small part of this exciting piece of history."
(Credit: CERN)
The 10,000 ton ALICE experiment has been specifically designed to study the extreme conditions produced in these lead collisions. Whilst the conditions created in the LHC detector will be a world record for manmade experiments and represent a great achievement for science and engineering, they pose no threat. More energetic particle reactions occur regularly throughout the Universe, including in the upper atmosphere of the Earth itself.
ALICE is one of the four main experiments at the LHC designed to study the physics from ultra-high energy proton-proton* and lead-lead* interactions.
Notes to editors
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Find out more about lead nuclei (link opens in a new window)
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Find out more about protons (link opens in a new window)
Contacts
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Bekky Stredwick
Press Office
STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445 777
Mob: +44 (0)7825 861 436
Images
Images and animations of the collisions are available from the Press Office.
The ALICE Experiment
Physicists working on the ALICE experiment (link opens in a new window) will study the properties, still largely unknown, of the state of matter called a quark-gluon plasma. This will help them understand more about the strong force and how it governs matter; the nature of the confinement of quarks - why quarks are confined in matter, such as protons; and how the Strong Force generates 98% of the mass of protons and neutrons.
The ALICE detector is placed in the LHC ring, some 300 feet (100 metres) underground, is 52 feet (16 metres) high, 85 feet (26 metres) long and weighs about 10,000 tons.
The ALICE Collaboration consists of around 1000 physicists and engineers from about 100 institutes in 30 countries. The UK group consists of eight physicists and engineers and seven PhD students from the University of Birmingham. It plays a vital role in the design and construction of the central trigger electronics (the ALICE Brain) and corresponding software. In addition, the UK group is making an important contribution to the analysis of ALICE data.
During collisions of lead nuclei, ALICE will record data to disk at a rate of 1.2 GBytes (two CDs) every second and will write over two PBytes (two million GBytes) of data to disk; this is equivalent to more than three million CDs (or a stack of CDs (without boxes) several miles high). To process these data, ALICE will need 50,000 top-of-the-range PCs, from all over the world, running 24 hours a day.
ALICE utilises state-of-the-art technology including high precision systems for the detection and tracking of subatomic particles, ultra-miniaturised systems for the processing of electronic signals, and a worldwide distribution network of the computing resources for data analysis (the GRID). Many of these technological developments have direct implications to everyday life such as medical imaging, microelectronics and information technology.
CERN
CERN (link opens in a new window) is one of the world's largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works.
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham (link opens in a new window) is a truly vibrant, global community and an internationally-renowned institution. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than four thousand international students from nearly 150 different countries.
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