[News-releases] Media Advisory: Canadians Available for Comment as LHC Particle Collider in Geneva Begins Experiments

[Tim Meyer]

Media Advisory | For Immediate Release | March 26, 2010

MARCH 30: CANADIAN SCIENTISTS JOIN PARTNERS TO OPEN NEW WINDOW ON THE
UNIVERSE
Canadian Contributors Available for Comment as LHC Particle Collider in
Geneva Begins Physics Experiments

(Vancouver, BC) – On Tuesday, March 30, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
will begin colliding subatomic particles at the highest energies ever
reached by a man-made accelerator.  This achievement will open a new era of
discovery about the basic nature of the Universe.  After several delays,
this milestone marks the beginning of the LHC Scientific Program that
scientists throughout the world have worked toward over the past two
decades.  Some of proudest contributors will be Canadians who helped design,
build, and commission the LHC and the massive ATLAS physics experiment.  As
history is made, university faculty and students across the country will be
available for comment. 

The new world record is set by the collisions of billions protons with an
energy of about seven TeV per collision.  Up until now, the massive LHC has
been warming up and going through its paces.  Scientists believe that when
the high-energy particles are brought into collisions, new discoveries will
emerge about the structure of space and time, including perhaps the elusive
Higgs boson or even tiny, extra dimensions of space. 

Canadians from eleven different research institutions (University of
Alberta, University of British Columbia, Carleton University, McGill
University, Université de Montréal, University of Regina, Simon Fraser
University, University of Toronto, TRIUMF, University of Victoria, and York
University) have been participating in this global scientific quest and will
be available to discuss the scientific and technical aspects.  Interested
media should contact the news offices at participating universities to seek
expert, local comment. 

The Large Hadron Collider accelerates two counter-rotating beams of protons
to nearly the speed of light and then brings them into collision inside
giant, cathedral-sized detectors that study the subatomic debris that comes
flying outward.  The Canadian team plays a leading role in the ATLAS
detector, akin to a gigantic digital camera that examines the millions of
collisions per second and identifies which ones should be stored and
analyzed in more detail.  The goals are just as awe-inspiring: probe the
structure of space to search for extra dimensions, identify and study why
matter has mass in the universe, and explore theories that connect subatomic
particles to the cosmos through dark matter and dark energy.  

TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, led
Canadian involvement in the LHC and has worked with universities and
companies across Canada to contribute key elements of the Large Hadron
Collider accelerator itself as well as the ATLAS detector.  TRIUMF is also
home to one of the ten supercomputer (so-called Tier-1) data centres around
the world that processes the enormous volumes of data from the ATLAS
experiment and distributes it to the thousands of scientists involved.  

This milestone is possible after a major refit of the LHC demonstrating the
excellent performance of the updated machine. The LHC will now run for the
next 18 months, and the data collected by ATLAS will allow scientists to
probe the origins of matter to an unprecedented precision where physics
theories predict new phenomena will lie. Whether the LHC discovers the Higgs
Boson, supersymmetry, new dimensions in space or time, or something that
scientists have not yet imagined, our understanding of the universe promises
to advance in a breathtakingly large step.

Follow LHC progress on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/cern.  For photos,
video and latest information see
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/lhc-first-physics/. For more information
about Canadian involvement in the LHC and ATLAS, see
http://www.atlas-canada.ca/.

###

********************************************************
Timothy I. Meyer, Ph.D.
Head, Strategic Planning & Communications
TRIUMF
4004 Wesbrook Mall
Vancouver, BC  V6T 2A3  CANADA
Tel: 604-222-7674
Fax: 604-222-3791
Cell: 650-464-8955
E-mail: tmeyer at triumf.ca
WWW: http://www.triumf.ca
********************************************************

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