What the Large Hadron Collider Will Discover Next

Earlier this year, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was prepped to achieve its next milestone: operating with a record-setting high-energy beam.

- By Manasee Wagh

Combined with a higher rate of proton collisions, the new setup allows scientists to further investigate the Higgs boson, following its discovery in 2012.

"When it's a nice starry evening, and you look up to the sky, everything you see there is only 5 percent of what's out there. The other 95 percent is still not understood," says Rende Steerenberg, CERN's head of the operations group within the Beams Department. "It would be very good if we could find hints of what this dark matter is, and perhaps find a dark matter particle."

During an experiment in the accelerator, twin beams of protons travel at close to the speed of light in opposite directions in the collider. They meet in the middle, where invisible fireworks happen-protons smash into each other, creating subatomic particles.

The COVID-19 pandemic delayed a long shutdown for maintenance and upgrades, but here's a look at what it takes to fire the collider back up after a brief hiatus to discover new things in the world of particle physics.

MAGNET-TRAINING // You can't just start up the LHC like a car engine. Getting ready to start up the collider involves literally tens of thousands of tests, Steerenberg says. The most time-consuming part is superconductor magnet-training.