The world ’s largest mote collider is set to get a brand new toy , diagnose for the honest-to-god guy in the Bible .
The toy – a detector , really — is call MATHUSLA . Researchers submitted a conceptual design report for the detector ’s design to thepreprintserver arXiv on March 26 , where it ’s now host .
“ MATHUSLA ” is a merciful and implausibly forced acronym for the MAssive Timing Hodoscope for Ultra - Stable neutraL pArticles . The acronym is a reference to Methuselah , a scriptural material body who lived nearly 1,000 years . Why the name ? Because the hodoscope would seek out especially long - lived particles in the Large Hadron Collider , which have so far escaped detection amid the collider ’s subatomic fireworks show .
The LHC.Photo: Ramaz Bluashvili from Pexels
The LHC achieved one of its main goals over a decade ago , with the observation of a Higgs boson in 2012 . Since then , particle physicist have been pondering how the gigantic , costly collider canyield further insightsinto the fundamental construction blocks and interactions of classical natural philosophy .
The LHC is place to be upgrade into theHigh - Luminosity LHC , which will increase the facility ’s brightness by a component of ten and increase the bit of Higgs bosons CERN physicists will be capable to study . That ascent is expect to be complete by 2029 , and MATHUSLA is proposed to work alongside the improved version of the world - renowned collider .
The fundamental design of the sensing element is thus : a monolithic boxwood , 131 feet ( 40 meters ) on each side and 36 fundament ( 11 K ) tall . The box seat would be filled with detectors that would sniff out long - live particles that elude the LHC ’s main detectors .
The new detector ’s near price , accord to the report , is $ 44.5 million ( € 40 million ) . Is it cheap ? Nope . Yet it ’s design to be cost - effective : minuscule than early proposals , but still big enough to be game - changing .
Late last month , CERN outlined a feasibleness study for the Future Circular Collider ( FCC ) , the could - be replacement to the LHC . The$17 billion FCCwould be three times the size of it of the LHC , buried doubly as deep underground , and would begin military operation before 2050 — though it would n’t be nail before the end of the 100 .
It ’s One Particle Accelerator , Michael . What Could It Cost—$17 Billion ?
MATHUSLA would extend resultant sooner . physicist ’ Leslie Townes Hope is to have MATHUSLA quick to ride alongside the HL - LHC , which is slate to start full - accelerator operations in the 2030s .
As long as the detector ’s name does n’t become a punchline for the time it takes for it to become a reality , there ’s a new opportunity for physicists to find physics at the verge of our current understanding .
BibleCERNLarge Hadron ColliderParticle aperient
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