First LHC Results Are In

When the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was reopened, not two months ago, the high-energy physics community was excited that the largest scientific experiment on the planet was operational. Then came the milestone that everyone wanted to see, namely the fact that the machine became the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, exceeding Fermilab's Tevatron. Now, scientists with the LHC's Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector have published the first results based on last December's proton collisions.

The thing that stands out, the BBC News reports, is that the collisions yielded a lot more subatomic particles than theoretical models had suggested. In a paper accompanying the finding, which was published in the current issue of the respected Journal of High Energy Physics, the experts write that the wealth of new particles should not hinder the operation of the giant collider even as it moves to higher energy levels. They add that the proton smasher collided particles at energy levels exceeding one trillion electron volts in December, which put it just little above the Fermilab. However, the LHC is running slowly, at barely a fraction of its potential capabilities.

“The level is somewhat higher than the most popular models had predicted, and it looks like it is going to increase with energy a little bit more steeply than we expected. I think it's not going to be a problem, but it is one of the many things that we need to know as we move toward searches for the most rare particles and new physics,” CMS collaborator and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientist Roland Gunter told the British news agency.

The expert also added that the “extra” particles would become more of an issue for the teams managing the LHC's detectors once the accelerators began to conduct collision experiments with ions of lead, which is a significantly heavier element than what is currently in use. These events will most likely result in even larger numbers of these particles. “We'll know much more about that in two or three months when we look at the next higher energy of 7 TeV,” he added. This energy level will be achieved by the two beams running in opposite directions, each with an energy level of 3.5 TeV.