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The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is getting supercharged with a $950M upgrade that will help physicists unravel the universe by making the contraption more sensitive to subtle quirks in the laws of physics. The machine works by “slamming subatomic particles together at close to the speed of light”: these collisions will be five to ten times greater after it is upgraded.
To ramp up the number of collisions at the LHC, engineers will fit powerful magnets to squeeze the protons into finer, more dense beams. They then plan to fit devices called crab cavities that use an electromagnetic pulse to give bunches of protons a little sideways kick as they enter the LHC’s detectors. This makes the protons rotate a smidgen the moment before they strike protons coming the other way, which drives up the number of collisions.
To ramp up the number of collisions at the LHC, engineers will fit powerful magnets to squeeze the protons into finer, more dense beams. They then plan to fit devices called crab cavities that use an electromagnetic pulse to give bunches of protons a little sideways kick as they enter the LHC’s detectors. This makes the protons rotate a smidgen the moment before they strike protons coming the other way, which drives up the number of collisions.