CERN Announces Collider Startup Delay

perturbed1 writes "The 142nd session of the CERN Council saw Organizational Director General Robert Aymar announcing a delay in the activation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The installation will start up in May 2008, taking 'the first steps towards studying physics at a new high-energy frontier.' Such a delay was foreseen due to the quadrupole accident, which we've previously discussed. This gives extra time for Fermilab physicists to try to understand the latest interesting hints of the Higgs boson, as well as give much needed extra-time for the detectors at CERN to get ready for data taking. Given that it will be fall before the LHC detectors take any useful data from collisions at 14TeV, could Fermilab collect enough data for a 5-sigma discovery by then?"

Comments

Time is running out for Fermilab

[moosesocks]

Let's not forget that the Tevatron (Fermilab's big accelerator) is scheduled to be shut down in 2009.

I'd love for the scientists at Fermilab to make this sort of breakthrough before the LHC goes live, as it'd be a huge morale booster for American physicists. Such a high-profile discovery would also attract the attention necessary to help solve the NSF's funding woes.

Re:Time is running out for Fermilab

[NeverVotedBush]

Actually, there were recent news bites that Fermilab had actually seen the Higgs. I don't have the citations, but supposedly they have possibly seen it now at least a few times and are re-examining the data to make sure.

It was just reported within the last month if I recall correctly. I apologize, but I just don't find the citation. I Know I read the article though.

Maybe it was in Scientific American?

Re:Time is running out for Fermilab

[weg]

I'd love for the scientists at Fermilab to make this sort of breakthrough before the LHC goes live, ...

Well, Fermilab has already made the first step towards this goal.
According to /., the parts of the LHC that caused the delay were designed by Fermilab ;-)

Re:Time is running out for Fermilab

[s4m7]

What you are referring to is the 4th related article: "Search for Higgs 'God Particle' gets interesting." It had been rumored that Fermilab had seen something that they were keeping under wraps for the summer publication cycle. Speculation was that it was the Higgs Boson but turns out it was the Cascade B.

Re:Time is running out for Fermilab

[jd]

Which is still very important and very significant. Personally, I'd like Fermilab to discover a few more intermediate particles but for CERN to get the Higgs. That way, both groups get lots of kudos and maybe even the cash they need. As it stands, neither are getting the support they should.

Re:Time is running out for Fermilab

[Macblaster]

American physicists dont care if a discovery comes from Fermilab or from CERN, because many of them work at both, or at least have colleagues who work overseas from wherever they are. As a US student who used to work at CERN (namely on ATLAS) my research advisors were splitting their time between Fermilab and CERN. NSF and DOE funding are going to both labs, and scientists will be happy just to get some real data to work with.

Re:Time is running out for Fermilab

[Gromius]

As a physicist who works at a Fermilab experiment, may I just say those reports were utter crap. A lot of excitement over nothing. It was completely unconvincing. Basically it was one guy with a blog making claims he really shouldnt have.

Something interesting to note, as an experiment winds down, it tends to "discover" something, recently this tends to be the Higgs. Compare this to 2000 when LEP at CERN was shutting down, passing the torch to the Tevatron at Fermilab, and there was all the commotion about the "Higgs discovery" there by ALEPH.

Anyway at the moment we have lots of bumps in our mass spectra which is how we find particles. However its a statistical process so bumps can naturally form just by chance alone. Factor in that we are looking in hundreds of places and all of a sudden a few bumps that have a probability of one in a few hundred of occurring dont seem so exciting yet. Not saying theres nothing there but we've seen this so many times before and it turns out to be nothing, people just tend to get to excited when they see them.

However Fermilab has a good chance of getting the Higgs (if its the Standard Model Higgs) because it has to be relatively light to make other measurements consistent which means its in the easiest spot for the Tevatron to see it but the hardest spot for the LHC to see it. It'll be well past 2009 before the LHC has a hope of seeing the Higgs at a low mass but it could see a high mass Higgs pretty quickly after turning on.

Re:Time is running out for Fermilab

[perturbed1]

As a physicist at CERN, I'd love to see Fermilab publish some 5-sigma signal on something just as the LHC starts up. I think this would be a huge morale booster for **physicists in general** -- not just for Fermilab or, even a smaller sub-set of that, American physicists. And note, I am saying here a 5-sigma signal! Not necessarily the Higgs. Any other high-energy discovery which then the LHC would confirm and continue on, would be awesome. (Cascade B is simply not high-energy enough!)

Such a high-profile discovery would boost the morale here at CERN significantly. I think almost everyone has this fear, which often people are scared to put into words, that we might turn the detectors on and really, see nothing. There are lots of talks from theorists lately which hide the Higgs, and then hide other physics away by using different mechanisms, suggesting that we might, indeed, see nothing... That is absolutely the worst scenario!

aside I see that a lot of /.ers here think the Fermilab/CERN race as some sort of an American/European race. This is completely bull! There are ~800 Americans working at CERN and vice versa. Half of my research group at CERN is or has worked at Fermilab... I think if Fermilab discovers something, I think most of CERN would be delighted! Afterall, chances are Fermilab might be able to discover something but will not be able to measure the properties of said-particle, such as spin. Presumably, the LHC should be able to do this better... Seeing something at the LHC that is new, even if "just-discovered" by Fermilab, is better than the prospects of "seeing nothing."

Higgs boson

[the_kanzure]

The Higgs boson subatomic particle is theorized to be the material unit from which mass originates.

Shortly after the birth of the Universe in the Big Bang, as the universe expanded the temperature fell below a critical value where a new type of field developed everywhere in the Universe (field, cmp. magnetic field around a magnet. Every point in space has a property: a measurable magnetic force and direction). We call this particular field the Higgs field. Some particles coupled to this field and the property they acquired is what we measure as mass. That is, particles are not solid in themselves but can be seen as a wave on a water surface. Although a wave moves no water from one side of a lake to another, it carries a lot of information: energy, momentum, amplitude, wavelength, etc. For particles mass is just another property acquired by interacting with the ever pervading Higgs field and that property we perceive as mass.

Re:Higgs boson

[QuantumG]

Yup, which suggests that discovering it, and understanding it, may give us some control over mass and inertia.. or, to put that in layman's terms: anti-gravity. A nice infinite source of free energy might be in there too. Who knows.

Re:Higgs boson

[weber]

Answer: No

You are concerned because you don't understand enough of what's happening, which is a natural (and practical) response to the unknown. Placing it deep underground is not for *your* safety but for the *experiment's*: the "noise" of the world (the sun/stars/etc.) must be reduced as much as possible in order to detect anything in the sensitive detectors.

But, the iPhone....

[rueger]

Judging by the fourteen glowing reviews posted since the beginning of this month I'm sure that the launch of the innovative iPhone technology will surely solve all of CERN's problems.

Or at least let them watch YouTube while waiting for repairs.

Re:I for one...

[BitterOak]

No, I don't wish any harm to the scientists or their reputations. However, I think it would be fun if Gravity didn't fit so nicely in the Standard Model like everyone is hoping it will.

Your point is well taken in that in some ways it would be more interesting if the Higgs were not found, but in fact the Higgs does nothing to bring gravity into the Standard Model. Instead it would explain the symmetry breaking in the Electroweak interaction. (I.e. why the W and Z are massive while the photon in massless.) Without a Higgs, a new mechanism would be necessary to explain this.

Re:I for one...

[Thiago Tomei]

I'd like to point that the Higgs boson has NOTHING to do with gravity. The Standard Model, Higgs boson included, is a theory of the strong and electroweak interactions. The mass that fundamental particles have for virtue of their Higgs couplings is akin to an inertial mass only.

But I agree with you. I'd also hope for the non-existence of the Higgs boson. however, all odds are against us. There are some fundamental processes that can only be made sense of in the presence of a particle which looks very much like the Higgs. If I recall correctly, it was Chris Quigg that said that "if the Higgs boson does not exist, we'll need something much like it". But of course, with the Higgs come a lot of other issues (the hierarchy problem for instance), which open up a whole new area for physics.

What did you expect?

[Bombula]

CERN Announces Collider Startup Delay

Well, time does slow down when you're moving close to the speed of light ...

5-sigma probably not possible

[Roger W Moore]

Given that it will be fall before the LHC detectors take any useful data from collisions at 14TeV, could Fermilab collect enough data for a 5-sigma discovery by then?

It is unlikely that we will have enough data for a 5-sigma Standard Model Higgs discovery before the LHC turns on. If I remember the plot for the expected Higgs significance correctly the best we can hope for is "3-sigma evidence" unless the Higgs really is right above the current limits (where ALEPH once suggested it was).

However this assumes a Standard Model Higgs. If something called Supersymmetry (SUSY) exists then there are 5 Higgs bosons (two with a charge) and in some areas of SUSY parameter space we can see some of these a lot more easily than the Standard Model Higgs This would also be a LOT more exciting than a Standard Model Higgs!

Link to plot

[Roger W Moore]

Sorry I should have included this in the original comment. Here is a link to the original expected Tevatron sensitivity and the updated one. The y axis is the volume of data collected by both experiments i.e. sum of DØ and CDF datasets and the x axis is the mass of the Standard Model Higgs. This is currently limited to be above 114 GeV/c2. The three lines are 5-sigma discovery, 3-sigma evidence and 95% confidence limit if we don't see any Higgs event in that amount of data.

The dip round 160 GeV/c2 mass is because a heavy enough Higgs can decay differently than a lighter one and the different decay is a lot easier to detect above all the other "background" events happening in the detector. We should get 10-20 fb-1 between both experiments by 2009 so, as you can see, unless we do something clever (which had not been thought of at the time the plots were made) or the Higgs is really light we won't get 5-sigma, but 3-sigma is a real possibility.

Am I The First To Say...

[CWRUisTakingMyMoney]

Physicists get hadrons!