Technology

Updated Large Hadron Collider to help scientists discover dark matter

After the accelerator charged in 2021Particles of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will again be launched after the upgrade and will be able to push the particles together again, scientists hope with the help of it to finally discover the elusive dark matter. For decades, physicists have been trying in vain to discover dark matter particles that account for the bulk of our Universe. However, now researchers have a new goal in these searches: a relatively heavy and long-lived particle, which can be obtained as a result of high-energy collisions at the LHC.

According to some physicists, this particle is fromtime can interact with dark matter. If these assumptions are confirmed, it may indicate to researchers the right direction in search of the elusive substance.

In a new article published in the journal PhysicalReview Letters, it is said how systems already installed at LHC, as systems, are able to identify these long-lived particles. They are called long-lived because they move slower, and exist longer than other particles obtained in experiments at the collider.

It is indicated that the main problem ishow to identify the event of their appearance among the other particles. As stated in a press release published on Phys.org, it all happens in a matter of nanoseconds. At the same time, every second within the 27-kilometer LHC within the framework of the experiments, more than billions of particles collide, and each such collision produces an even greater number of subatomic debris ejected in all possible directions. Updating the LHC should significantly simplify the process of detecting the desired particles.

“We expect, along with those tools thatalready installed at the LHC, the new method will increase the chances of finding long-lived particles by more than one order of magnitude, ”said Jia Liu, a researcher at the University of Chicago.

Experimenters are already working on the constructionnew trap. When the LHC is restarted in 2021 after a tenfold increase in its luminosity, all three main sensors will use the new system.

“We think that the potential for system efficiency will increase many times,” adds Liu.

“If these particles are there, then we just have to find a way to detect them. Usually the right question is the key to the answer, ”adds physicist Liang Tao Wang from the same University of Chicago.

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