Incidents in LHC ...forcing restart in 2009

Sorry for being late to update you about the incidents which occured within a week of the LHC's inauguration. As the superconducting magnet lost about a tonne of liquid helium into the tunnel. As a result massive Quenches occurred around sector 3- 4 . it happened when one of the superconducting magnet which was kept cooled down by liquid helium- leaked. This causeed rise of the temperature. It was bad because it may result an abrupt change of proton beam's paths..the amount of lost superfluid helium is said to be about 1% of the total amount used in LHC.. After this incident on 19th September, the LHC was forced to shut down.


Investigation showed lately that a faulty electrical connection between 2 magnets was the cause of this. And for which the connection melted as of high current...“This incident was unforeseen,” said CERN Director GeneralRobert Aymar, “but I am now confident that we can make the necessary repairs, ensure that a similar incident can not happen in the future and move forward to achieving our research objectives.”..

This is a major disappointment for the LHC after a trail of events of opening on just a few days back, and this forced to reschedule the operation. It is now expected to restart in early spring in 2009.

“Coming immediately after the very successful start of LHC operation on 10 September, this is undoubtedly a psychological blow,” said CERN Director General Robert Aymar. “Nevertheless, the success of the LHC’s first operation with beam is testimony to years of painstaking preparation and the skill of the teams involved in building and running CERN’s accelerator complex. I have no doubt that we will overcome this setback with the same degree of rigour and application.”

This LHC is very complexly designed and very unique. it is necessary to fully understand why and how the incident happened and making sure of it will never happen again.. this is why the restart may be delayed.

“The LHC is a very complex instrument, huge in scale and pushing technological limits in many areas,” said Peter Limon, who worked on commissioning the world’s first large-scale superconducting accelerator, the Tevatron at Fermilab in the USA. “Events occur from time to time that temporarily stop operations, for shorter or longer periods, especially during the early phases.”

Finally, We are pleased to know that its not that a major incident and might not take too long to reopen... the billion dollar project may show us new edge of human knowledge. proving the predicted theories and looking for the evidences to study..

ghostly higgs ...

There are particles which are massive and also there are particles which are massless. According to the theory of relativity the massless particles are the only particles who can gain the ultimate speed. the speed of light. like photons. they always travel at a speed c. but the massive particles dont. Now, They also travel but the speed is rather slower. As they get more massive, the speed is slower. the very question, is how do they get mass. what causes them being massive?

Formula one drama continues....

Lewis Hamilton

I am writing on formula one after a long gap. Actually so many things are happening in F1 that i couldn't stop myself from writing.. Lewis Hamilton's F1 Car (McLaren Mercedes)
Let me start with last year's story. L Hamilton of G Britain. a very young promising driver is appointed in Mclaren's team. Its was after kimi Raikkonen left to Ferrari and also JP Montoya who joined the NASCAR. The eye was really on Mclaren becaause it was F alonso, who joined Mclaaren team leaving the Renault and looking for a brighter future... as a team mate, Hamilton is starting to show up side by side with Alonso. he was a rookie driver but the way he come in front was astonishing! well, not exactly astonishing to those who used to watch formula 3 champ. coz he came out from that. However, Hamilton shows his power and his ability to win races and even amazingly the ability to be a rookie champion. the dream lasted till to the last Brazilian Grand prix.
Kimi Raikkonen, F1 Driver's Champion 2007
The main drama was not only that the rookie was about to take away the championship from that F. Alonso, but also Alonso made more news! He was involved with the spying on Ferraari's car with few other. All he wanted a better car than Hamilton's. Why? he even argued with the Mclaaren team boss Ron Dennis and threatened him. This was the story of the late Q3 of 2007. and what was the result? Well team boss informed the FIA and thus they were fined millions of dollars! as well as all their points were swept up. and making the Ferrari which was not performing good in '07, the Constructors champion. F. Alonso in 2007
Alonso had a contract signed with Mclaren for about three years, but seems a very bitter relation with the team boss Ron Dennis making it difficlt for him to stay, and also it was a very uncomfortable situation with the team as well. as both Hamilton and Alonso were given Identical cars and none was preferred. For the spying - he caused millions of dollar pay, and also '0' points for the Mclaren Constructor at the end of the season 2007. Though Hamilton could give the only good thing for Mclaren, as a rookie champion-who was appointed by Mclaren team boss Ron Dennis, and It could be a great pay-off for Hamilton. But it was all luck for them, kimi Raikkonen who joined Ferrari team leaving Mclaren that year, became the champion staying just 1 pont ahead of Lwis Hamilton!! at the end of the season..
For when 2008 season started, things have changed a lot. Ferrari had a new car, a new better aerodynamics and engine as well and better than 2007's car. they got stable team mates. F Massa and k. Raikkonen. and Alonso had no choice but joined again the Renault team. Hekki Kovaleinnen joined with Lwis Hamilton. and who else could be threat for team Mclaren?? well, It is BMW!

Up till now, and in the last race of Canadian Grand prix, Robert Kubica of BMW, won the race not ony that, his team mate Nick Heidfeld earning points too for the Team!
The Season hasnt finished yet, but lots of Drama still is happening. The FIA presiden Max Mosley is going through tough time as he was involved with some scandal! Max Mosley( FIA Presiden: under pressure to resign)
and many members wants this FIA president to step down from his position. But he argued and still holding the position speaking of the Incident as his personal matter and not to relate with his job. well what was the Scandal?? well.. it was that a British Tabloid published him who seemed to take part in a Nazi-themed orgy with prostitutes!!


Anyway, Lots of Drama is still spinning. Will write about it later. by this time, dont miss the coming France Grand prix, a real challenge for all front line drivers! Cheers!

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Mini black hole in LHC!... delaying the grand opening...

LHC (the Large Hadron Collider) was planned to open long ago.. but due to some technical problems its opening was shifted to this year 2008. But seems luck still doesnt favor. A new legal problem arose as few persons filed a lawsuit in long distant place -Hawaii!..

Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho who are these people filed this as they believe that there is a threat of creating a mini black hole in super collider LHC, which will eat up the whole earth. so there it is.. that is the reason for which its delaying. LHC is now checking the environmental safety issue over again just making sure everything is just allright.


But who are these 2 people who raise the safety issue of LHC? and calling it unsafe which may turn the whole earth into a microscopic black hole resulting a lump of dense matter? the words become so fictional.!! indeed! Mr Wagner is and US citizen and a botanist!! and he's also a lawyer( hmm! that makes sense!) he used to be a nuclear safety officer. and Mr. Sancho is a Spaniard! ( ohh damn! i hate f. alonso the F1 driver and also r. nadal the tennis player as well - they both are Spaniard!) and he described himself as' an author and researcher on time theory!!!' (hmmm! may be a sci-fi writer)- ( New York Times)

(....unfinished....)

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The Aharonov -Bohm effect

For long since the electrodynamics has developed, we are familiar with the Vector Potential. The Vector potential was for thought to be just a tool to develop the Maxwell’s equations. It was ignored in the macroscopic physical world. But there is a deep underlying physical significance of it in quantum mechanics, and also the deep connection of topology with physics (This experiment can be considered as the simplest example)

As we know any vector can be written as a curl of another vector, so the magnetic field vector B can be written as B=curl A. this A is called the vector potential.

fig: a solenoid showing Aand B

Apparently A doesn’t look very much physically significant. But it is. And it was first recognized by 2 Physicists Aharonov and Bohm. In the early 60s Aharonov and Bohm published papers and describing an effect due to a certain experimental set up of old double slit experiment. What we now know as Aharonov-Bohm effect.

(D.Bohm and Y.Aharonov, "Significance of electromagnetic potentials in the quantum theory", Phys. Ref., 115 (1959) 485 and - "Further considerations on electromagnetic potentials in the quantum theory", Phys. Rev. 123 (196) 1511.
G. M811enstedt and W.Bayh, "The Continuous variation of the phase of electron waves in field free space by means of the magnetic vector potential of a solenoid", Phys. BlUrt. 18 (1962) 299.)

In this experimental set up, think of a long solenoid is set just after the double slit. (Originally a very special kind of magnetic field is used.

[as its difficult to place a long solenoid in that tiny space] Under certain circumstances iron crystals can grow in the form of very long, microscopically thin filaments called whiskers. These whiskers can be magnetized and they then act like very tiny solenoids: Hence a purely static magnetic field concentrated in the whiskers (the field outside is extremely small and can be neglected)) So there is no magnetic and electric field present at the gap between the slits and the screen (outside the whiskers). The observed phenomenon was a shift of interference pattern just due to the placement of that solenoid. So, what could affect the charged particles on its path if no field was present?

Classically we can’t find the whisker unless we hit it by an electron, but quantum mechanically it can be detected through the electrons passing by it. This is very strange as we have set the B and E zero... Then what else could affect these particles? As they cant even go through the regions where there is non- zero (inside the solenoid) magnetic field? And there we can bring the term the vector Potential A. The only remaining term exists outside the solenoid is A. Which might affect the electrons and thus we have the shift of interference pattern. So we have no chance to think this Vector Potential Physically insignificant any more.

In the next post, we'll try to dig a little more a little calculations ...and we'll see how topology connects to physics in this very simple experiment (consider the solenoid as a hole in a flat sheet which is not simply connected) of electromagnetism at quantum level.

Ref. and for further study.
1. Lewis H. Ryder -Quantum Field Theory (1st ed) (pg-101)
2. Felsager B. - Geometry, particles and fields(2nd ed) (pg-49)
3. R.P Feynman- Lectures on Physics (Vol-II)(12th ed) (pg-895)
4. Sakurai J J- Modern Quantum Mechanics(2nd revised ed) (pg- 136)
5. M Nakahara- Geometry, Topology and Physics(1st ed) (pg- 356)
6. Peshkin M., Tonomura A.- The Aharonov-Bohm effect -(Lecture notes in Physics series of Springer-Verlag, Its a Complete resource of this topic!)
7. Wikipedia



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pre/post WW-II

In my last post i categorized the history before and after the WW-II. It may be a question why is this? Actually, while the war was on, a number of physicists were involved with the war related stuff... (Research on bomb and high tech stuff). So in those days, many physicists were in connection with many government officials and they could manage convincing for funding of setting up accelerators. So in those days, after few decades, the budget was made and the funds were available for the research so, that was a point, I made. And that was a time when the particles were being discovering...and the accelerators were leading the theory....but lately in the 80s the thery developed so far that we needed powerful, high energy accelerator.

The Superconducting Super Collider

But now a day, after the cold war. The soviet broke up. And USA brought many Russian brains to their country, and the budget was cut and accelerators were run out of fund. Finally SSC (Superconducting Super Collider) was terminated. So, like this, (this was due to gulf war) many other projects were either terminated or cut the budgets...or they put pressure to earn money in their own way...So, it was hopeless...

The Large Hadron Collider

But recently the CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) is setting up the LHC (large Hadron Collider) which is almost done. And expected to be in operation in May 2008. However, if the SSC were in operation that could produce 20 TeV amount of energy. But this LHC will produce 14 TeV... But yet this is a hope to have something higher.