Preparing magnets for the LHC
10 February 1999
Construction of the world's highest energy particle accelerator is underway at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics near Geneva. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will collide beams of protons head-on on the 27-km circumference tunnel that currently houses the Large Electron Positron collider (LEP). To reach the highest energies possible, requires the highest magnetic fields achievable in the electromagnets that guide the proton beams on their circular path. For this reason, the LHC will use more than 1200 dipole magnets, each 14.2 m long, which will reach a field strength of 8.35 Tesla. To reach these high fields, which are five times greater than used in the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) at CERN, the magnets rely on superconductivity - the ability to conduct high electric currents without losses. The coils of the magnets are made from niobium-titanium cables which become superconducting only at very low temperatures, so the LHC magnets will operate at only 1.9 K - 1.9 degrees above absolute zero - which is colder than outer space! This week's picture shows work on one of the first magnets, at the end of the cryostat - the "Thermos flask" - which keeps the magnet coils cool.
Credit: CERN Photo
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