• Question: What's the worst that can happen when experimenting in particle physics?

    Asked by muizzasif2000 to Jackie, Michele, Oliver, Vicky, Yelong on 13 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Jaclyn Bell

      Jaclyn Bell answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      If you are running a particle accelerator I think the worst that can happen is that the beam line shifts, say if a magnet isn’t aligned properly and this could make the particles come slightly out of sync and could damage the machine… But unfortunately I don’t get to do the experiments 🙁 so Vicky and Michele correct me if I’m wrong!

    • Photo: Michele Faucci Giannelli

      Michele Faucci Giannelli answered on 16 Mar 2015:

      Actually a design flow like the one that the LHC magnets had in 2008 will cause delays of more than a year. In 2008, you can easily google LHC 2008 accident for more details, one of the superconducting magnets lost its superconductivity state, therefore heated, which resulted in the liquid helium in the cryogenic chamber to become vapour and expand. This cause a small explosion. That cause the LHC to be delayed by more than a year and be run at half its design energy.

      I think there are even worse scenarios, especially for en experiment. Such as having some key component badly damaged so that you will not be able to work for a long time while the competing experiment is. For example the BABAR experiment had a component that would be badly damaged by water, so the experimental hall had to be carefully water proofed.

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