[News-releases] LHC Begins Science Program

[Tim Meyer]

News Release | For Immediate Release | March 30, 2010

BEYOND THE ENERGY FRONTIER: LHC BEGINS SCIENCE PROGRAM
LHC Particle Collider in Geneva begins investigation of physics at record
breaking energies

(Vancouver, BC) - This morning at 1:06 p.m. Central European Time, CERN's
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) began colliding particle beams at the highest
energies ever reached by a man-made accelerator.  This milestone marks the
beginning of the LHC scientific program that researchers throughout the
world have worked towards for over two decades.  Some of the loudest cheers
were from Canadians who helped design, build, and commission the LHC and the
massive ATLAS experiment.  A new era of discovery about how the universe
works has been launched.

"It's a great day to be a particle physicist," said CERN Director General
Rolf Heuer.  "A lot of people have waited a long time for this moment, but
their patience and dedication is starting to pay dividends."

"With these record-shattering collision energies, the LHC experiments are
propelled into a vast region to explore, and the hunt begins for dark
matter, new forces, new dimensions and the Higgs boson," said ATLAS
collaboration spokesperson, Fabiola Gianotti.  "The fact that the
experiments have published papers already on the basis of last year's data
bodes very well for this first physics run."

The LHC 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 project 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 even explore theories that connect subatomic particles
to the cosmos through dark matter and dark energy.  

"This is the breakthrough moment we have all been waiting for," said Rob
McPherson, spokesperson and Principal Investigator for the 200 person
Canadian team, professor at the University of Victoria, and Institute of
Particle Physics Research Scientist. "The LHC was conceived of more than two
decades ago, and today's success represents the start of a new era in our
understanding of the makeup of matter and the universe. In Canada alone we
have nearly 100 graduate students awaiting these data, and they will be
among the first to study matter at this new energy frontier." 

Nigel S. Lockyer, Director of TRIUMF, Canada's national laboratory for
particle and nuclear physics, commented, "It is a crucial hand-off, from
ensuring that the machines are running to taking data and doing physics.
This has been a smooth transition---and now we're cruising.  ATLAS is a
global project and it's an incredible opportunity for Canadians to be part
of the team that is peeling back another layer of the onion about how the
universe works."

TRIUMF 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.  In fact, today's collisions "showed up"
in the Canadian computer centre within hours, ready for Canadian scientists
to start analyzing them. 

This milestone was achieved 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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