Exorikos zei:
Trouwens zo'n grote en technisch ingewikkelde machine is nog nooit eerder gemaakt, dus het is normaal dat hier en daar foutjes aan het licht komen.
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Als het lhc project niet wakker wordt gaat een fossiel binnen enkele maanden met de prijs lopen.
Edit: Het aantal lezers met access kan je wsl op 1 hand tellen dus een cp
LHC Delays Give Tevatron a Shot at Higgs Boson
One lab's setback can be another lab's opportunity. Last week, officials at the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland, announced that it will take longer than previously estimated to fix the world's highest energy particle smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which suffered a catastrophic malfunction last year before ever taking data (Science, 26 September 2008, p. 1753). The LHC will not start up again before late September, 2 months later than previously announced. Meanwhile, the older Tevatron collider at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, may be gaining the edge in the race to spot the Higgs boson, the last missing piece in the standard model of fundamental particles.
"Three years ago, nobody would have bet a lot that the Tevatron would be competitive [with the LHC] in the Higgs search. Now I think the tables are almost turned," says Tommaso Dorigo, a physicist from the University of Padua in Italy who works with the CDF particle detector fed by the Tevatron and the CMS particle detector fed by the LHC.
Given the continuing delays with the LHC, Fermilab physicists are hoping for the chance to continue running their 26-year-old collider through 2011. Officials at the Department of Energy, which owns Fermilab, declined to comment because they are still formulating their budget for the next fiscal year, which starts on 1 October. But they would likely have to make that decision before the LHC comes back on.
Fermilab scientists say it's only prudent to keep the Tevatron running. "We don't think that a running accelerator complex should be shut off until it's displaced by another running accelerator complex that's producing physics," says Fermilab's Rob Roser, co-spokesperson for the 602-member CDF team. But some say the call should not be made on the assumption that the LHC will have more problems. "You should look at your own program and assume the other guy will succeed," says Sheldon Stone of Syracuse University in New York state.
The numbers show that the Tevatron is performing superbly. Physicists measure the amount of data produced in units of "inverse femtobarns." From the beginning of the current run in 2001 until the end of September, the Tevatron produced 5 inverse femtobarns. It is now on pace to nearly double that amount by the end of 2010, and it could rack up 12 inverse femtobarns by the end of 2011. Chances are. The projected probability that the Fermilab experiments will glimpse the Higgs boson depends on the particle's mass.
That should be enough data to give researchers with CDF and the neighboring D0 particle detector a chance to see evidence of the Higgs boson--if it's there. "Evidence" is jargon for a signal that's stronger than a certain level but not strong enough to claim a definite discovery. The probability of seeing such a signal depends on what the Higgs might weigh. Researchers with CDF estimate that if the Higgs weighs between about 120 and 195 times as much as a proton--that's 114 and 182 giga-electron volts (GeV) in the units physicists prefer--then CDF and D0 working together should have at least a 25% chance of seeing it if the Tevatron runs through 2011 (see figure).
Scientists at the Tevatron seem to like their chances. More people are sticking around than a 2004 survey had projected, says Fermilab's Dmitri Denisov, co-spokesperson for the 530-member D0 collaboration. "We expected that we would lose between 10% and 15% of our people per year, but between a year ago and now, we're down about 5%," Denisov says. CDF's losses are also lighter than expected, Roser says.
Ultimately, whether the Tevatron runs in 2010 or 2011 depends on Fermilab's budget. In preparing for life after the Tevatron, Fermilab is planning to build a proton accelerator to power neutrino beams and other experiments (Science, 31 August 2007, p. 1155). If there isn't enough money, says Fermilab Director Pier Oddone, "then we will stop the Tevatron to get the resources to develop the future of the lab."
Across the Atlantic, CERN officials have laid out a timeline for repairing the LHC and making modifications to prevent a repeat of the 19 September failure. The problem began when a splice in a superconducting electrical line melted, triggering a leak of boiling liquid helium and a concomitant pressure wave that damaged 53 of the machine's more than 1600 superconducting magnets. Workers need an additional 6 weeks to make those fixes, says CERN spokesperson James Gillies. To make up for lost time, Gillies says, CERN will run the LHC through next winter despite the higher cost of electricity, which normally dictates a halt in operations. Still, CERN officials can't guarantee that the LHC won't run into some new sort of problem that will cause further delays. Meanwhile, Fermilab researchers see a more predictable path to their shot at glory.