LHC: World Accelerator

Over the years, CERN has seen a steady increase in interest from other nations. The number of Member States has risen from the initial twelve to twenty. In addition, CERN now has half a dozen observer states, including the United States, the Russian Confederation, and Japan [7]. Today, some 30% of the scientists involved in experiments at CERN are from non-member states. They represent 73 nationalities from 54 institutions world-wide. Of these, 500 are from the U.S., 400 from Russia, 60 from Canada, 40 from India, 40 from Japan, 30 from China, 30 from Georgia, 28 from Belarus, and 22 from Israel and Bulgaria each [22].

Table 1: The Rise of Big Science in High-Energy Physics [14]

Name or type	Location	Energy (GeV∗)	Year in operation
Synchrocyclotron Cosmotron Bevatron Proton Synchrotron Proton Synchrotron Alternating Gradient Synchrotron proton synchrotron proton synchrotron Super Proton Synchrotron Tevatron Large Hadron Collider	Berkeley, USA Brookhaven National Lab., USA Berkeley, USA Dubna, USSR CERN, Europe Brookhaven National Lab., USA Serpukhov, USSR Fermi National Accelerator Lab., USA CERN, Europe Fermi National Accelerator Lab., USA CERN, Europe	0.35 3 6.2 10 28 33 76 400 400 1000 14,000 (?)	1946 1952 1954 1957 1959 1960 1971 1972 1976 1985 2005 (?)

∗ 1 GeV = 1 billion eV

Particle accelerators have no military importance. For that reason, it would seem unnecessary for different nations build their own accelerators. The rational alternative would be to have a truly international high-energy program, with accelerators accessible to scientists from all nations. The idea of a “world accelerator for world peace,” a huge international project bringing together scientists from all over the world, has been popular among physicists for over half a decade. In 1959, Robert Wilson, Fermilab’s first director, envisioned the far-reaching implications of such a project:

“The greatest force of such an international laboratory will be in developing our common culture in physical science ... particles, accelerators, and society

may interact again—this time to provide a force for international harmony. ”[14]

Figure 6: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The main ring used to contain only to the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP). The tunnel will also houses the vacuum tube of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Superconducting magnets keep the particle beam in orbit. Shown also are the previous accelerator rings of the Proton Synchrotron (PS) and the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), which now serve as pre-acceleration stages, or lower gears, in the acceleration process. Around the track are the different experiments—ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid), and ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS)—where particles are smashed into each other and new particles detected.