Deep beneath the Franco-Swiss border lives the Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometer ring of magnets and accelerating cavities that form the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. Every second, the LHC collides billions of protons and other atomic nuclei at almost the speed of light.
These collisions allow scientists to produce and study the fundamental building blocks of matter. In 2012, LHC experiments discovered the Higgs boson, without which you and I would not exist. Since then, they have advanced our knowledge of other fundamental particles; discovered new rare and exotic particles; put new bounds on theories; and inspired more than a million students and visitors.
But many mysteries about our universe remain. To address them, scientists have figured out how to make this powerful tool for science even more powerful, capable of collecting even more data and making even better measurements. This is why they are preparing for a massive upgrade called the High-Luminosity LHC. The upgrade will significantly increase the collision rate of the LHC and allow scientists to collect an order of magnitude more data.
The HL-LHC will accomplish this with a new type of magnet technology that can pack even more protons into the LHC’s particle beams. The HL-LHC will also have special cavities that kick the beams at the last moment to cause more head-on collisions. These collisions are more likely to produce the rare processes scientists are looking to study.
