Inside the LHC accelerator started the first collisions between lead ions to 5 TeV per nucleon: “We will explore the matter in the very early stages of our universe”
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Geneva Another step back in time, coming within a whisker of the Big Bang. After the restart, last June energy record of 13 trillion electron volts (TeV) of superacceleratore LHC and the first months of collection of the data generated by the collisions of protons, CERN in Geneva has begun a new experimental phase. Inside the LHC beam pipe, the magnetic track of 27 km circumference of 100 meters deep on the border between France and Switzerland, started the first collisions between lead ions to 5 TeV per nucleon energy almost twice one used during the first phase of activities of the accelerator.
New round of collisions
Once the phase of proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV, the so officially a new cycle with collisions heavy ion, lead ion composed of 82 protons and 126 neutrons. For a month we will gather data of these new collisions by the four LHC experiments, huge cameras as great Gothic cathedrals, at which collisions take place in the ring of ions circulating in opposite directions, near the speed of light .
“We will explore the matter in the very early stages of our universe”
“It is tradition to collide ions for about a month every year as part of the program LHC research. This year, however, is special – said Rolf Heuer, CERN Director General – because we reach a new energy and explore the matter in the very early stages of our universe. ” Ion collisions allow it to CERN physicists – including about 1,500 Italians, half of which are coordinated by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics – to study a state of matter called quark-gluon plasma. It is a soup of particles existed briefly a few millionths of a second after the Big Bang.
New
voyage of discovery
particularly enthusiastic about the new phase of the LHC physicists of the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), which was specifically designed for the study of these collisions between nuclei. “The INFN physicists have a key role in starting this run with ions – says Paul Giubellino, spokesperson of the ALICE, the INFN of Turin – There are many issues to deal with very hot ion collisions for which our experiment was specifically designed and then improved during the shutdown. The entire collaboration is preparing with great enthusiasm for this new voyage of discovery. “
After the barrier 1000 TeV
“The total energy collision of lead ions is of 1045 TeV and breaks through the symbolic barrier of 1,000 or 1 TeV ENP (Peta electron volts). We have, therefore, 5.02 TeV for each collision nucleon-nucleon, the highest ever achieved in a laboratory in collisions between nuclei, “adds Federico Ronchetti, INFN National Laboratories of Frascati and operations manager of data taking ALICE (Run Coordinator).
Samples of fundamental data
“The collisions of nuclei to the energy of the LHC will allow us to recreate, for an infinitesimal time, a system under conditions similar to those found in the first millionths of second of the universe, and to study their properties in laboratory – instead emphasizes Federico Antinori, Physics Coordinator of ALICE, the INFN of Padova – We are collecting data of good quality, at an energy of collision ever produced. This set of data will be important for two reasons. First of all, it allows you to make crucial tests to a new energy to the predictions of the theoretical models developed to describe the measurements made at lower energy. Second, we expect statistical samples much more extensive than those collected so far, which will allow measures to precision never before achieved. “
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