Several years ago it was predicted that as soon as the Hadron Collider was put into operation, the end of the world would come. This huge proton and ion accelerator, built at the Swiss CERN, is rightfully recognized as the largest experimental facility in the world. It was built by tens of thousands of scientists from many countries of the world. It can truly be called an international institution. However, everything started at a completely different level, first of all, in order to be able to determine the speed of the proton in the accelerator. It is about the history of creation and stages of development of such accelerators that will be discussed below.
Beginning history
After the presence of alpha particles was discovered and atomic nuclei began to be studied directly, people began to try to experiment on them. At first, there was no talk of any proton accelerators here, since the level of technology was relatively low. The true era of the creation of accelerator technology began only inThe 30s of the last century, when scientists began to purposefully develop particle acceleration schemes. Two scientists from the UK were the first to design a special DC voltage generator in 1932, which allowed the others to begin the era of nuclear physics, which became possible in practice.
The appearance of the cyclotron
The cyclotron, namely the name of the first proton accelerator, appeared as an idea to the scientist Ernest Lawrence back in 1929, but he was able to design it only in 1931. Surprisingly, the first sample was small enough, only about a dozen centimeters in diameter, and therefore could only slightly accelerate protons. The whole concept of his accelerator was to use not an electric, but a magnetic field. The proton accelerator in such a state was aimed not at directly accelerating positively charged particles, but at curving their trajectory to such a state that they flew in a circle in a closed state.
This is what made it possible to create a cyclotron, consisting of two hollow half disks, inside which protons rotated. All other cyclotrons were based on this theory, but in order to get much more power, they became more and more unwieldy. By the 1940s, the standard size of such a proton accelerator was equal to buildings.
It was for the invention of the cyclotron that Lawrence was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939.
Synchrophasotrons
However, as scientists tried to make the proton accelerator more powerful,Problems. Often they were purely technical, since the requirements for the resulting medium were incredibly high, but partly they were in the fact that the particles simply did not accelerate as required from them. A new breakthrough in 1944 was made by Vladimir Veksler, who came up with the principle of autophasing. Surprisingly, the American scientist Edwin Macmillan did the same a year later. They proposed to adjust the electric field so that it affects the particles themselves, if necessary, adjusting them or, conversely, slowing them down. This made it possible to keep the movement of particles in the form of a single bunch, and not a blurry mass. Such accelerators are called synchrophasotron.
Collider
In order for the accelerator to accelerate protons to kinetic energy, even more powerful structures began to be required. This is how colliders were born, which worked by using two beams of particles that would spin in opposite directions. And since they were placed towards each other, the particles would collide. The idea was first born back in 1943 by the physicist Rolf Wideröe, but it was not possible to develop it until the 60s, when new technologies appeared that could carry out this process. This made it possible to increase the number of new particles that would appear as a result of the collision.
All developments over the following years directly led to the construction of a huge structure - the Large Hadron Collider in 2008, which in its structure is a ring 27 kilometers long. It is believed thatit is the experiments carried out in it that will help to understand how our world was formed and its deep structure.
Launch of the Large Hadron Collider
The first attempt to put this collider into operation was made in September 2008. September 10 is considered the day of its official launch. However, after a series of successful tests, an accident occurred - after 9 days it failed, and therefore it was forced to close for repairs.
New tests began only in 2009, but until 2014, the structure worked at extremely low energy to prevent new breakdowns. It was at this time that the Higgs boson was discovered, which caused a surge in the scientific community.
At the moment, almost all research is being carried out in the field of heavy ions and light nuclei, after which the LHC will again be closed for modernization until 2021. It is believed that it will be able to work until approximately 2034, after which further research will require the creation of new accelerators.
Today's painting
At the moment, the design limit of accelerators has reached its peak, so the only option is to create a linear proton accelerator similar to those currently used in medicine, but much more powerful. CERN tried to recreate a miniature version of the device, but there was no noticeable progress in this area. This model of a linear collider is planned to be directly connected to the LHC in order to provokethe density and intensity of protons, which will then be directed directly into the collider itself.
Conclusion
With the advent of nuclear physics, the era of development of particle accelerators began. They have gone through numerous stages, each of which has brought numerous discoveries. Now it is impossible to find a person who has never heard of the Large Hadron Collider in his life. He is mentioned in books, films - predicting that he will help reveal all the secrets of the world or simply end it. It is not known for certain what all the CERN experiments will lead to, but with the use of accelerators, scientists were able to answer many questions.
