The world’s biggest particle accelerator will be fired up again next week as scientists resume research into the mysteries of the universe after a three-year shutdown for work to improve the machine’s power and precision.
The restart of the Large Hadron Collider at the Cern laboratory near Geneva coincides with the 10th anniversary of the celebrated discovery by its researchers of the Higgs boson, a long-sought fundamental particle that gives mass to other subatomic components of the universe.
Scientists hope that increasing the energy and frequency with which protons collide in the LHC’s experiments, after accelerating almost to the speed of light in a 27km underground ring, will provide evidence for “new physics” — fundamental forces and particles that go beyond the so-called standard model, to which the Higgs boson gave a finishing touch.