Geneva: Cern restarts its particle accelerator

After a three-year hiatus of maintenance work, the proton beams are sent back through the 27-kilometre underground loop. In this way, the time when the universe arose about 14 billion years ago is simulated.

nAfter three good years of maintenance and improvement work, the world’s largest search machine has been restarted: particle accelerator The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. On Friday, the first two proton beams will be chased in opposite directions through the 27-kilometre underground ring.

It takes six to eight weeks for the device to reach speed. Only then can proton collisions occur again, providing insight into the fundamental laws of being must reveal.

A particle accelerator is used to simulate the time when the universe originated about 14 billion years ago. Researchers observe decay processes during collisions and gain insight into the smallest components of matter, the elementary particles. Among other things, the Higgs boson, which was theoretically described 40 years ago, was first discovered at CERN in 2012. It contributes to the fact that elementary particles have mass.