Dawn of the Large Hadron Collider
大型强子对撞机的曙光
Credit & Copyright: Maximilien Brice, CERN
影像提供及版权：Maximilien Brice, CERN
Explanation: Why do objects have mass? To help find out, Europe's CERN has built the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator yet created by humans. This May, the LHC is scheduled to start smashing protons into each other with unprecedented impact speeds. The LHC will explore the leading explanation that mass arises from ordinary particles slogging through an otherwise invisible but pervasive field of virtual Higgs particles. Were high energy colliding particles to create real Higgs bosons, the Higgs mechanism for mass creation may be bolstered. LHC will also look for micro black holes, magnetic monopoles, and explore the possibility that every type of fundamental particle we know about has a nearly invisible supersymmetric counterpart. The LHC@Home project will allow anyone with a home computer to help LHC scientists search archived LHC data for these strange beasts. Pictured above, a person stands in front of the huge ATLAS detector, one of six detectors being attached to the LHC.
说明：为什么物体都有质量？为了找到答案，欧洲粒子物理研究所建造了大型强子对撞机（LHC），它是迄今为止人类创造的最高能粒子加速器。预计今年五月，大型强子对撞机将进行以前所未有的速度开始冲撞质子的试验。大型强子对撞机将主要研究质量的起源，普通微粒猛击另一种不可见但普遍存在的希格斯虚粒子而形成。高能粒子碰撞会形成真正的希格斯波色子，这就对希格斯原理产生质量提供支持。大型强子对撞机还将寻找微型黑洞，磁单极子，以及探索我们所知道的每一类基本微粒是否有一种不可见的超对称微粒存在。LHC@Home工程允许每一位有家用电脑的人来帮助LHC科学家利用这些已经入档的LHC数据寻找那些奇怪的微粒。上面的影像中，一个人站在巨大的ATLAS侦测器前，这是六个侦测器中连接到大型强子对撞机的一个。
