The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located at the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland, has been responsible for some of the most significant scientific breakthroughs in recent memory. Most notable of the discoveries is the Higgs Boson, which was dubbed the “God Particle” for being responsible for giving all matter its mass. The Large Hadron Collider consists of a 27-kilometer ring of superconducting magnets and accelerating structures that boost the energy of two particle beams, which are then collided.
After a three year pause for upgrades, The LHC is back in operation. During those three years, changes to the accelerator have increased its energy range as well as the level of compactness of the particle beam. With these upgrades, it is expected to capture more particle interactions this time than the two previous times it was turned on combined.
However, despite the many experiments, the LHC has not found conclusive evidence of new particles. During this four-year run of the LHC, scientists hope to dark matter, a hypothetical particle that does not emit, absorb, or reflect light. This mysterious substance makes up more than 80 percent of all matter in the universe and is the metaphorical glue that holds together galaxies and galaxy clusters.
There are two widely accepted explanations for dark matter: weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPS) and light dark matter. WIMPS have large masses, explaining dark matter’s strong gravity, but do not interact well with other particles—hence, “weakly interacting.” The other explanation centers lighter hypothetical particles called axions. The lighter particle would require more of itself to fill the universe. To interact with axions, particles called dark photons mediate between dark matter and regular particles. Both types of dark matter are being looked at through the LHC. One of the upgrades to the LHC, the Forward Search Experiment (FASER), is designed to look for these dark photons.
After a three year pause for upgrades, The LHC is back in operation. During those three years, changes to the accelerator have increased its energy range as well as the level of compactness of the particle beam. With these upgrades, it is expected to capture more particle interactions this time than the two previous times it was turned on combined.
However, despite the many experiments, the LHC has not found conclusive evidence of new particles. During this four-year run of the LHC, scientists hope to dark matter, a hypothetical particle that does not emit, absorb, or reflect light. This mysterious substance makes up more than 80 percent of all matter in the universe and is the metaphorical glue that holds together galaxies and galaxy clusters.
There are two widely accepted explanations for dark matter: weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPS) and light dark matter. WIMPS have large masses, explaining dark matter’s strong gravity, but do not interact well with other particles—hence, “weakly interacting.” The other explanation centers lighter hypothetical particles called axions. The lighter particle would require more of itself to fill the universe. To interact with axions, particles called dark photons mediate between dark matter and regular particles. Both types of dark matter are being looked at through the LHC. One of the upgrades to the LHC, the Forward Search Experiment (FASER), is designed to look for these dark photons.
