The Large Hadron Collider Redux: Hoping for a Long, Hard Slog

摘要

In 1991, as accelerator physicists at the Deutsche Electron Synchrotron (DESY) laboratory in Hamburg, Germany, turned on their new $650 million particle smasher, they ran into some technical glitches. Researchers found one problem in the circuits meant to protect the superconducting magnets at the heart of the 6.3-kilometer-long Hadron Electron Ring Accelerator (HERA) from destroying themselves in an emergency. But in trying to fix the problem, they made it worse, recalls Karl Hubert Mess, then a DESY staff member.rnTo diagnose the problem, Mess and colleagues disconnected part of the circuit. But that overloaded a key element called a cold diode. "We were stupid. We disconnected the protection" for the diode itself, Mess says with a sheepish smile.