Focussing on the future of CERN

1 March 2000

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Resembling a robot head with bronze-lashed eyes, this model shows how focussing magnets may look at Large Hadron Collider (LHC), being built at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CERN. The LHC, which is scheduled to start up in 2005, will accelerate beams of protons and heavy ions to energies as high as 7 TeV (teraelectron volts) before allowing them to collide head-on. As in any particle accelerator, the beams will be kept tightly focussed by the magnetic fields created by quadrupole (four-pole) magnets. The LHC will accelerate two beams of protons, travelling in opposite directions, so the machine is being built as two accelerators in one. The two "eyes" in this model quadrupole magnet surround the holes for the pipes through which the proton beams travel. The complete structure will be housed in a huge cryostat - a "vacuum flask" - to maintain the very low temperatures needed for the superconducting operation necessary for the dipole magnets that will guide the particles in a ring 27 km in circumference.

Credit: CERN Photo