During the weekend physicists have increased proton beam intensity in the Large Hadron Collider, slowly approaching design parameters of the largest particle accelerator of the world.
The scientists have increased the amount of bunches in each beam from 2 to 4. Particle beans consist of bunches – fine “needles”, which are several centimeters long and contain about 100 billion protons.
More bunches are necessary for correct operation of the accelerating part of the collider. Design parameters of the LHC provide 2808 bunches in each proton beam. Bunches are responsible for the number of particle collisions and occurrence probability of expected events, Higgs boson creation, for instance.
Large Hadron Collider was built by CERN with the participation of Russian physicists.
Source: RIA Novosti