University of Minnesota physicists play role in Large Hadron Collider research

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, launched a new era for particle physics today when the first particles collided at the record energy of seven trillion electron volts (TeV). Particle physicists around the world are celebrating the new achievement and what it will mean to physics research, including progress in the hunt for dark matter, new forces and new dimensions.

These collisions mark the start of a decades-long LHC research program at an energy three and a half times higher than previously achieved at a particle accelerator. CERN will run the LHC for 18-24 months with the objective of delivering enough data to the experiments to make significant advances across a wide range of physics channels.

More than 25 University of Minnesota physicists are among the 1,700 international scientists and engineers who have collaborated on designing and building the LHC accelerator and massive particle detectors. The University of Minnesota researchers specifically played a very significant role in the design and construction of one of the two very large general purpose detectors at the LHC.

Provided by University of Minnesota