Glitch stalls particle accelerator

Less than a day after its first successful run, the Large Hadron Collider - the largest particle accelerator in the world - ran into its first glitch on Sept. 11 and has been shut down since.

Penn researchers who were participating in the project say they are disappointed but still have plenty of work to take care of while waiting for the accelerator to be fixed. Penn researchers who were in Switzerland for the test run have returned.

The reason for the malfunction remains unclear. Officials from CERN - the particle physics laboratory where the LHC is located - said in a press release that, "the most likely cause of the incident was a faulty electrical connection between two of the accelerator's magnets."

The mishap caused a large helium leak that will set the project back until April 2009.

Before technicians can go in to figure out what went wrong, the collider needs to be warmed up from its operating temperature - two degrees above absolute zero. This process alone will take several weeks, according to the CERN press statement.

The ATLAS detector - the component of the collider that Penn researchers were working on - is undamaged. The detector will enable scientists to see particles produced by the collision of high-energy protons.

Physics professor Evelyn Thomson said the Penn High Energy Physics Group will continue to use data collected from that detector, although it will not be as exciting as the collisions they were hoping for.

"For the next six weeks or so, we're going to be looking at cosmic rays coming through the detector," she said. "It's not necessarily a good thing, but it helps us to get down to things lower on our priority list."

Thomson said the breakdown also gives the research team more time to test the detector and prepare for data collection before normal operations resume. She also said such setbacks are common in complex physics experiments like the LHC project.

"When you're running it for the first time, you can prepare for as many things as you can think of, but something can always go wrong," she said.

The LHC -- which is designed to accelerate subatomic particles to speeds not seen since the Big Bang - has faced numerous political challenges as well.

One theory is that the collider could generate a black hole that would consume the earth.

A lawsuit in Honolulu from Walter Wagner and Luis Sanchoattempted to stop the LHC operation on those grounds, but it was dismissed this week.

A federal judge dismissed the case on the grounds of jurisdiction, saying the monetary investment from the United States was not significant enough to permit action.

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