Toroid Barrel fires up

[Ciro Pabón]

Well, just in case somebody is interested: the large hadron collider (LHC) critical component for the Atlas experiment, known as the Toroid Barrel, the largest superconducting magnet built, was succesfully powered up on the first attempt yesterday (something I have been following for some time). Sorry for the 300Kb picture, but I don't have time to resize it.



The magnets are the huge metal pipes with orange stripes. The LHC is the largest structure ever built, as many of you probably know, it is in Switzerland and it will start to work in November 2007. Perhaps at the end of the next F1 season we will have some answers on why the universe is made of matter instead of antimatter and how everything started... which is as intriguing as who will be next WDC.

For the mechanical engineers, I want to remark that the magnet is empty: instead of a huge core of metal to contain the field, it relies on the shape of the deceptively simple magnets and the coils in it, which contain the field in a donought shape, hence its name (toroidal). It is kind of revolutionary (for me); who knows, perhaps there is some potential in this design for electric motors.

For the civil engineers (at least for some, I hope), the hexagonal structure that holds everything together is really cool and I imagine that the electric and magnetic forces on it have to be important. I wonder what's made of, it does not seem to be steel, I'm not sure.

Finally, those interested in computing science can ponder that the detecting system has to isolate 100 events amid 100 million on real time and stores 1.000 million records every year, which is no small feat.

If you are not into physics, at least is a cool place for the villain fortress in next Bond movie.

[ginsu]

i am suprised they are not triangulating any of the members of the structure. maybe the material is not weldable?

[DaveKillens]

Thank you Ciro, wonderful stuff. I'm always entranced by such mega-projects that push back the frontiers of ignorance. As a side note my favorite is the ITER fusion project, which celebrated international co-operation today by comittement of money by participating nations.

It appears the silver structural members are aluminum (non magnetic) and are designed to contain forces of expansion.

[joseff]

The mythbusters put a tank of FeO2 in an MRI machine and it flew! Imagine what would happen if you put a bulldozer in this thing

[Ciro Pabón]

Thanks for the comments, ginsu, Dave.

The reason why there is no triangulation of the structure is because in the center goes the muon detector which is essentially a huge barrel. The magnets in the photo bend the path of the particles inside that barrel and allow the operators to deduce its mass from the radius of its trajectory. It is a giant particle detector.

The LHC is much larger: it is a giant tunnel in a circle, with a diameter of 8 kilometers. Nascar fans could argue that the fastest racing track in the planet is an "oval": all the efforts are made to achieve "almost" the speed of light.

If the Toroid Barrel in the photo is good for Bond movies, the LHC is perfect for Half Life: it is a tunnel 27 km long...

[djones]

Silly question but what is it used for?

[joseff]

The ATLAS toroid thing is one of the magnets in the Large Hadron Collider system. The purpose of the LHC is to accelerate charged particles to very very high speeds, nearing the speed of light. They go round and round the 27km track until they smash together, revealing their insides.

The fun part: some people speculate that doing so might trigger the creation of a stable micro black hole that will eat up the earth.

[DaveKillens]

Silly question but what is it used for?

In this form of physics research, you really can't directly study the atom or it's interior workings. So what happens instead is that you study the interaction and results of collisions. Sort of reverse engineering.
There is a huge circular tunnel, and in that tunnel are two separate conduits. Charged particles are accelerated and race around this circle, to meet and (hopefully) collide. It's the results of that collision is what this experiment and apparatus is all about.
From this data scientists can learn the basic rules about fundamental physics. Pushing back the curtain of ignorance and advancing by better understanding of how this universe works.

I'd like to give an example of how you can observe indirectly. Imagine a nice cold glass of beer. If you look closely, you can see bubbles forming on the sides of the glass and travelling up to the surface of the beer. Now, the bubbles just didn't come out of nowhere, they were formed by a tiny particle on the surface of the glass. So although you would need a microscope to directly observe the particle, it can't readily be seen by the naked eye.

[Ray]

Hey Ciro. Thanks for the post. I saw something on TV about it and was wondering how it was coming along. That thing is enormous! I bet a Nextel Cup car could hit 210 easy in that tunnel. But they'd have to watch out for Freeman of course.

[manchild]

The fun part: some people speculate that doing so might trigger the creation of a stable micro black hole that will eat up the earth.

It seams so benign now and tempting like radiation did when it was discovered and we all know what followed.

http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/quac ... hpaste.htm

[Tom]

Atomic toothpaste, brilliant.

I like the idea of a micro black hole, and if it attempts to devour the earth we can easily destroy it, just chuck Jade Goody in there, nothing could survive her for over an hour.

[joseff]

@Dave: The beer/microscope analogy is a bit off. To observe what beer is made of, we can simply take beer apart, using dessication, electrolysis, etc. Then we can observe what beer is made of.

The problem with subatomic particles is, we can't really take them apart. So let's try another analogy we all know: cars. Imagine we have cars but not wrenches so we can't tell what's inside. So what we do is take two cars, crash them together. We see wheels, steering wheels, radiators flying off. A-ha! So cars are made of those components. Crash a large enough number of cars together, and we can pretty much tell what a car is made of.

In this analogy, the LHC acts like Ralf Schumacher and Takuma Sato of quantum physics.

For the SciFi fans here, read Earth by David Brin. It's a story of how scientists created a micro black hole that escaped its containment field, then proceeds to eat its way through the earth.

[Ciro Pabón]

@djones: this device is used to learn what are the things made of. It should give some clues about the possible origin of the universe.

@joseff: the LHC smashes particles, break them and allow you to see their components the way you describe. This is the "crasher". The Toroid Barrel is the detector of the particles that are created in these crashes.

Anyway, DaveKillens's analogy is right on the mark: the first bubble detectors worked in a way very similar to his explanation.

The bubble detector was invented by Charles Wilson, a Scot. It is simply a glass box with a piece of dry ice under it (the ice they use at concerts or discos to make fog) and a cloth soaked in isopropyl alcohol (you can find it at a pharmacy) on the top. After 15 minutes or so, the box fills with supercooled alcohol vapor (this is supercool, really ). When a charged particle passes through, it makes the liquid in its path to evaporate, forming bubbles. This leaves a trail, the way jet aircrafts leave contrails in the sky.

Home-made bubble chamber


I make an improvised bubble chamber when I go the school of my sons every year to teach them about materials and bridges (it is a PTA thing, but I love it ). You should see the faces of people when you "prove" them that particles exist, specially when young.

First photo that proved the existence of antimatter (positron) in a bubble chamber


The Toroid barrel will have a chamber in the center, crisscrosed by many wires and a huge computer that detects the changes in current in them when a particle passes nearby, and then deduces its path, kind of particle and energy it carries (they use another device for this called a calorimeter).

@Ray: well, I don't think it can accomodate a car, the LHC tunnel is cramped with the tube that carries the particles. I don't think they will create a place like Black Mesa or Xen, but... (a mini-black hole would evaporate quickly, after "only" wiping Switzerland or so, I think).

LHC tunnel

[Carlos]

An analogy is a literary device that -- by comparison of dissimilar elements hopes to convey an entrainment of logic or intuition-- not a controlled experiment-- not a hypothesis -- not a theory. But. But ...

Wait a second! -- I got an

Then again -- what would happen if you put a glass of beer -- into a particle accelerator or a toroid barrel? Would it be a smoother; more satisfying lager -- or perhaps resemble the flavour signature of an ale? Could this process replace Cold Fusion? -- I mean Cold Filtering Ciro , Dave -- I think we are onto something -- a patent -- maybe marketing --- thats the ticket! An Accelerated Toroid Honey Lager at $200 a bottle! " Would you like that served warm or cold Sir?"

Regards Carlos

[Ciro Pabón]

Well, Carlos, what goes through the middle of the blue tube of the last photograph are high energy protons. It is like the longest spark you've seen in your life (or a 27 kilometers curved lighting, if you allow the comparison).

Probably it will explode the glass, but if you make a special one for the purpose, you will get radioactive beer.

I limit myself to old rum. Besides, you don't have to go to the bathroom so frequently.