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Physics World Archive

On the road to discovery


Tommaso Dorigo

From
Physics World
March 2011

© IOP Publishing Ltd 2011

ISSN: 0953-8585

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physicsworld.com Feature: The Large Hadron Collider

CERN
On the road to discovery
The most energetic proton–proton collisions ever observed are now being produced at CERN’s
Large Hadron Collider. In the first of two articles, Tommaso Dorigo explains what drives the collider’s
researchers to sit awake eagerly taking data through the small hours of the night
The walls are plastered with banks of computer screens. every day in the huge on-site centre known as “Tier
Most show bland-looking information, constantly zero”, where tape robots handle and store the precious
streaming in, about the status of the accelerator or the raw data, and thousands of CPUs perform the first full
sub-detector elements. But if you walk in while the col- reconstructions of particle trajectories and energies. Tommaso Dorigo
lider is taking data, what stands out most is the least use- The one you paid attention to on screen was nothing is a research scientist
ful piece of hardware: a large, colourful flat-screen special in itself – it was merely raised to ephemeral glory at Padova University,
display set up high in front of the shift leader’s seat, by a random choice of the event-display program. Italy, and a member
where snapshots of the reconstructed tracks and energy Welcome to the control room of the Compact Muon of the Compact Muon
deposits of particles produced in the collisions are con- Solenoid (CMS), one of the four experiments running Solenoid and the
tinually broadcast in a 3D orgy of colours (see box on at the CERN particle-physics lab just outside Geneva Collider Detector
at Fermilab
page 24). (figure 1). Here, and in three other command centres,
collaborations, e-mail
The screen refreshes every few seconds with a new researchers work shifts, spending busy days and sleep- tommaso.dorigo@
collision, so it is tough luck if you wanted to spend more less nights in front of computer screens running mon- gmail.com. He writes
time examining the last one: it will have been recorded itoring programs that take the pulse of detector about particle-physics
in a data file somewhere, but the chances are you will components, data-collection hardware and electron- news for non-experts
never see it again. Millions of such “events” – the term ics of all kinds. Nights are better than days for data ta- on his blog
used to describe particle collisions, as well as the result- king: everybody is more focused; phones do not ring; A Quantum Diaries
ing few-hundred-megabytes-worth of data – are logged and data quietly accumulate in the storage hardware. Survivor

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Physics World March 2011
Feature: The Large Hadron Collider physicsworld.com

1 Deep underground Fundamental matter


Through a century of investigations and a string of

CERN
experimental observations, particle physicists have
amassed a precise knowledge of how matter at the
shortest length scales consists of a small number of ele-
mentary bodies acted upon by four forces (figure 2). We
know that matter is composed of two dozen fermions –
France
six leptons and 18 quarks – interacting by the exchange
Switzerland of a dozen bosons; the odd player is a single additional
Geneva LHCb CERN particle, the Higgs boson that characterizes the excita-
ATLAS ALICE
tions of the vacuum in which particles live. The LHC
can generate enough energy to “shake” this vacuum and
CMS so could finally observe those “Higgs vibrations” that
were hypothesized more than 40 years ago but which
have so far escaped experimental confirmation.
LHCb The LHC experiments have been designed with
ATLAS the explicit aim of finding that one missing block. Yet
ALICE even with a Higgs boson, as pleasing and tidy as the
Standard Model looks, it is necessarily incomplete.
CMS
LHC Like Newton’s theory of classical mechanics, which we
now understand to be the small-speed approximation
of Einstein’s theory of relativity, the Standard Model
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a 27 km-long ring that lies approximately 100 m under the is believed to be what we call an effective theory – one
Franco-Swiss border, close to the city of Geneva. Four giant experimental caverns are located that works well only in a restricted range of energies.
along the ring. While CMS and ATLAS exploit the full energy and intensity of the machine, LHCb The energy at which the theory starts to break down
is designed to detect small-energy collisions and study the production of bottom quarks at high
and new phenomena become evident is unknown, but
intensity. ALICE is optimized for collisions between nuclei such as lead, which the LHC delivers
in special runs.
theoretical arguments suggest that it is well within
reach of the new accelerator.
Acting like speleologists confined in a small corner of
The valuable strings of zeroes and ones do not lay a huge unknown cavern, researchers have scrupulously
undisturbed for long. A formidable network of com- explored all the territory they could light up with the
puters continuously copies the reconstructed data to available technology; their fantasies of what lies beyond,
different regional centres around the world, where however, have never ceased. The LHC is a powerful
huge parallel sets of CPUs reprocess the information, new lamp, capable of illuminating vast swaths of unex-
producing skimmed datasets that are then broadcast plored land. Where light is cast, we hope we will finally
around the globe to their final destinations – an array of see features at odds with our low-energy effective the-
smaller regional centres. There, the data files get ory. These new phenomena should provide us with the
sucked in by avid programs that researchers deploy in crucial hints we need in order to answer some nagging
long queues. Like people politely queuing, the pro- questions and widen our understanding of nature. For
grams silently await their turn to spin the data disks and example, why is it that there are only three generations
produce distilled information for the analysers who of matter fields, and not four, or five, or 10? Or is there,
designed them. perhaps, a host of “supersymmetric” particles mirror-
The gigantic effort of machines and brains that con- ing the ones that we already know about? Maybe these
verts hydrogen atoms into violent proton–proton col- particles have not been discovered yet only because they
lisions, and then turns these into data-analysis graphs, are too massive and thus impossible to materialize with
is surprisingly seamless and remarkably fast. There is the collisions created by less-powerful accelerators. And
overt competition between the Large Hadron Collider is space–time really 4D, or can we produce particles that
(LHC) experiments and those at the Tevatron, the US’s jump into other dimensions? These and other crucial
proton–antiproton collider at Fermilab in Illinois, questions can only find an experimental answer if we
despite the latter’s imminent demise. Having run for continue to widen our search.
25 glorious years and due to be decommissioned at the
end of this year, the Tevatron is unwilling to leave the Casting new light
scene to its younger and more powerful European coun- The new lamp is now finally turned on, but it was not a
terpart just yet, and is trying to catch a first faint glimpse painless start. The celebrations for the LHC’s start-up
of the Higgs boson before its CERN rival discovers it. on 10 September 2008 were halted only eight days later
Even more, there is in-family competition between the by a fault in an electrical connection between two of its
two main LHC experiments: ATLAS and CMS. The 1232 dipole magnets: the heat produced vaporized
challenge for these two large collaborations is not only six tonnes of liquid helium, the blast from which cre-
to find the signal of a Higgs boson; perhaps even more ated a shock wave that damaged a few hundred metres
exciting, they will also try to figure out which of the “new of the 27 km underground ring and forced a one-year
physics” scenarios already on the blackboards of the- delay in the accelerator programme. A total of 53 mag-
orists is the follow-up to the “Standard Model” of par- nets had to be brought to the surface, repaired or re-
ticle physics. The quest is on to fill the blank pages of placed by spares, and reinstalled in the tunnel. A full
our fascinating story of the infinitely small. investigation of the causes of the accident was carried
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Physics World March 2011
physicsworld.com Feature: The Large Hadron Collider

out, and safety systems were designed to prevent sim- 2 Matter of fact?
ilar catastrophes in the future.
Since the LHC restarted in November 2009 at an
energy of 0.45 TeV per beam, it has been working im-
peccably; but a cautious ramping up in stored energy u c t γ
was still required. Bit by bit, and with great patience,
up charm top photon

quarks
the physicists and engineers who operate the acceler-
ator have raised the energy of the circulating protons,
as well as their number, while painstakingly searching d s b g

force carriers
for the best “tunes”: orbit parameters that avoid elec-
down strange bottom gluon
tromagnetic resonances of the beams with the machine
that would otherwise cause instabilities and decrease
the lifetime of the beams.
Although the quality of the beams has so far consis- νe νµ ντ z
electron muon tau

leptons
tently exceeded expectations, only up to a tenth of the neutrino neutrino neutrino Z boson
maximum protons per beam have so far been circu-
lated, and the total collision energy of 7 TeV now being
produced is half the design goal of 14 TeV. Still, 7 TeV is e µ τ w
more than three times what has been achieved at the electron muon tau W boson
Tevatron, allowing the investigation of large swaths of
new, unexplored territory. The latest schedule is for the I II III
LHC to remain at 7 TeV until the end of 2012, when an three generations of matter
upgrade to 8 TeV or more will be possible. Then, after
a year-long shutdown in 2013 to finalize the commis- Matter fields and force carriers in the Standard Model of particle
physics. Matter is composed of three families of quarks (pink) and
sioning of extra safety systems, the machine will gradu-
leptons (purple). These are all particles of half-integer spin called
ally be brought up to its 14 TeV maximum.
fermions, with mass increasing from one generation to the next.
Particle physicists need higher energy to see deeper, Fermions of the first generation are stable, while all others (except
but they also need more intense light and observation neutrinos) only live for a very short time before decaying into lighter
time to resolve what they are illuminating more clearly; versions. Particles interact via force carriers (blue). All fermions
for them, energy and intensity – or time if you think interact through the exchange of W and Z bosons, the carriers of the
about how long it takes to build up an intense signal – weak force. Electrically charged fermions also interact by exchanging
are two sides of the same coin. In November 2009, as photons (γ), which transmit the electromagnetic field. Finally, quarks
news of the first collisions was broadcast worldwide, it come dressed in three kinds of a different charge, called colour and
was easy to find curious non-physicists asking what the conventionally labelled as red, green and blue; they exchange the
outcome of the experiment had been, but hard to ex- charge by emitting and absorbing eight kinds of gluons (g), which are
plain to them why it is likely to last at least another two the carriers of the strong force. Gravity is omitted from the picture
decades. The signal of a new particle or unknown effect because it is too weak to influence sub-nuclear phenomena, and
is not expected to spew out as soon as a switch is flicked because it does not belong to the theoretical framework: a quantum
theory of gravity is not yet available. The Higgs boson, which is still
and collisions take place: it will appear at first as a small
missing, is not shown.
departure of the observed data from what the models
predict, and only the accumulation of more data will
turn it into clear evidence of a new phenomenon. known phenomena is well understood and matches
What is more, any evidence of new physics had better what is expected from computer simulations. Test par-
be rock solid if it is to be published. Despite being more ticles include electrons, muons, photons and neutrinos,
than 40 years old, the Standard Model has only required as well as the collimated streams of particles, or “jets”,
tweaking once: it was initially thought that neutrinos (thethat originate from the emission of energetic quarks or
partners of the charged leptons e, μ and τ, see figure 2) gluons by colliding particles (see box on page 24). The
were massless, but in 1998 long-awaited experimental processes being sought may produce a combination
proof showed that they have a small but non-zero mass. of these objects, and simulations are needed in order
Since its conception in the early 1970s, the Standard to accurately predict what signal they will yield in Particle
Model has withstood such detailed and precise tests that the detector. physicists need
no physicist is going to take a claim of its inability to The second step involves selecting events that con- higher energy
describe an observed phenomenon lightly. Indeed, the tain that specific signature being searched for; for ex- to see deeper,
thousands of researchers working on the LHC experi- ample, if the goal is to find a massive particle believed
ments will provide a deep level of internal scrutiny to anyto yield a pair of quarks when it disintegrates, then one
but they
scientific result claiming new physics. By the time they may choose to only analyse events where exactly two also need
let it be submitted for final publication, the chosen jour-energetic jets are observed (again, see box on page 24). more intense
nal’s peer-review process will be like the bored glance Third, researchers usually impose some fine-tuning to light and
of a ticket inspector in comparison. the signatures’ requirements: events are chosen for observation
which the produced particles were emitted orthogo-
time to resolve
The search for evidence nally to the beam, or thereabouts, as these are the most
The typical modus operandi of the search for a new par- interesting events. Particles that are produced at a small what they are
ticle signal or a new phenomenon involves several steps. angle to the beam do not undergo much of a momen- illuminating
First, it must be verified that the detector’s response to tum change and are therefore more likely to originate more clearly
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Physics World March 2011
Feature: The Large Hadron Collider physicsworld.com

What the pixels show

CERN
This event display, shown on one of the many
CMS control-room screens, gives researchers a
few-seconds snapshot of a randomly chosen
collision. Once trained in how to interpret these
figures, a quick glance is all it takes to
understand their significance. Here the event
was a proton–proton collision. The figure on the
left shows the signals recorded as they would be
seen by an observer looking along the beam line
running through the CMS detector. Charged
particles follow curved paths in the magnetic
field, and their tracks (green) are reconstructed
from the ionization deposits they leave in an
instrument called the Silicon Tracker. The most
energetic particles are bent the least, and here
are part of two particle “jets”. The jets are easily
identified by their high momentum perpendicular collimated particles. have large positive or negative values of η. The
to the beams (red and blue, labelled “pT”). On the right, the cylindrical detector has been height of the coloured bars in the graph
Jets are the cleanest manifestation of quarks “unrolled on a plane” along the azimuthal angle correspond to the transverse energy, ET. The two
and gluons, the constituents of the colliding φ to show where the particles hit. High-energy clusters of cells labelled “Jet 1” and “Jet 2”
protons. Hard collisions consist of two collisions are the most interesting ones and they originate from two quarks or gluons emitted
constituents being mutually kicked in opposite often produce particles near perpendicular to “back to back”, i.e. in opposite φ directions,
directions. As quarks and gluons get expelled the beams; the emission angle is linked to a orthogonal to the incoming protons. The event
from the protons, they are slowed by the strong quantity called pseudo-rapidity, η, which is displayed here is no random choice – it is one of
force that keeps the protons together. The close to zero for near-perpendicular angles. the highest energy collisions recorded by the
resulting radiation gives rise to streams of Particles detected at an angle close to the beam CMS detector in 2010.

from background processes. The point of this step is to Unfortunately for Nobel-hungry particle seekers,
discard physical processes that we already understand most of the searches result in no new signal: the data
with the Standard Model (which in effect constitute an fit reasonably well to the null hypothesis; standard de-
unwanted background noise in the search) while retain- viations remain close to zero; and that flight to Stock-
ing as many events as possible that may contain the new holm can be put on hold. Still, even a negative result
particle signal. The less background that remains in the contains useful information: the consolation prize is
final sample, the more likely it is that some small anom- then a publication in a journal. From the level of dis-
aly caused by the new process will become visible. agreement of the data with the alternate hypothesis
In the final step of a search for new physics one typ- one can in fact extract and publish a “95% confidence-
ically uses statistics to infer whether a signal is caused level upper limit” on the rate at which an LHC collision
by a real effect or just some random variation. The may create the new particle being sought. This means
observed size and features of the selected data are com- that when no signal is found, physicists conclude that
pared to two different hypotheses: the “null” and the either the particle does not exist (and its rate of cre-
“alternate”. According to the null hypothesis, the data ation in LHC collisions is thus zero) or that it is pro-
result exclusively from known Standard Model pro- duced too rarely: too few of them would then be
cesses; according to the alternate hypothesis, the data contained in the data for their presence to be de-
also contain a new particle signal. If there is a sig- tectable. These limits are a useful guide for theorists,
nificant disagreement between the data and the null whose models need to avoid predicting new particles
hypothesis, and a much better agreement with the that are produced in collisions at a rate already ex-
alternate one, researchers then estimate the probab- cluded by experimental searches.
ility that such a phenomenon occurred by sheer chance. The LHC is now casting light further into the un-
They usually convert this into units of “standard devi- known. If there is anything to discover out there, many
ations” – commonly labelled by the Greek letter sigma are betting that it will be reported by the CMS and
(σ). A “3σ significance” effect would be produced by ATLAS collaborations this year. The excitement for
background fluctuations alone (i.e. without any signal these new searches is as great as ever, and the internal
contribution) only once or twice if the whole experi- meetings of the two collaborations, where the status of
ment were repeated a thousand times. Such an occur- ongoing analyses is presented, are packed with re-
rence is said to constitute evidence for a possible signal, searchers constantly balancing their primeval scepti-
though a statistical fluctuation usually remains the most cism with their childlike enthusiasm for anything that
likely cause. A “5σ significance” instead describes ef- looks like a potential new find. Will the LHC finally
fects where the chance of random occurrence is smaller prove its worth, 20 years after its original design? A
than a few parts in tens of millions, and is agreed to description of the discoveries that might hit the news
be enough to claim the observation of a new particle in the next few months is offered in the accompanying
or phenomenon. article (“Signatures of new physics” pp26–30). ■
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Physics World March 2011

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