The physicist community is expecting new discoveries with the restart of the Axial Accelerator, after it has been upgraded to 13 TeV

"The LHC is our only opportunity in at least the next 15 years to advance our knowledge about the structure of matter, the forces and particles in nature," says Prof. Elam Gross from the Weizmann Institute, who also adds that Israel has a great contribution both in terms of building the accelerator, and in the research aspect

The largest particle accelerator in the world - the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is now more powerful after starting its second run this month. The accelerator's first run led to the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. After a planned shutdown for maintenance in early 2013, the LHC is now ready to explore entire domains of particle physics over the next three years.

In addition to studying the Higgs boson with greater precision, physicists will look for evidence of the existence of new particles beyond the Standard Model - which describes all known subatomic particles. Some theories, such as supersymmetry, predict the existence of exotic particles that should appear in high-energy collisions at the LHC.
Another possibility is that additional dimensions will be discovered beyond the four dimensions we know of time-space. Physicists will also try to locate the mysterious dark matter responsible for most of the mass in the universe. Candidates to be used as components of the dark matter (a substance that does not radiate in any frequency range, but whose gravity makes up most of the gravity in the AB universe) frequently pop up in physical theories beyond the standard model, including those mentioned here - super symmetry and the extra dimensions.

The most dramatic change at the LHC is that the energy of the collisions will almost double to 13 TeV (tera electron volts) in 2015 compared to 8 TeV in 2012.
The intensity of the colliding rays (known as lighting - luminosity) will also be higher, which will create more collisions per second. The feedback of increasing the energy and increasing the lighting means a huge increase in the amount of data that will be produced and will give more statistical power to the analysis. In addition, the collisions at higher energies may produce new particles and perhaps even phenomena we have not yet seen.

Higher energies will produce particles with larger masses

"The LHC is our only opportunity in at least the next 15 years to advance our knowledge about the structure of matter, the forces and particles in nature," says Prof. Elam Gross from the Weizmann Institute, who headed the group that searched for the Higgs and finally also discovered it in the Atlas Besar project,

"Beyond more precise measurements of what we've already seen like the Higgs boson, I'm very hopeful that we'll encounter the tip of the iceberg of the new physics that we know must be there but don't know where. The LHC will provide the only opportunity to discover the physics beyond the Higgs. The gut feeling of many From us it is that the discovery of the Higgs was the end of an era and the coming years will be the beginning of a new era in the physics of the 21st century and if I take the development of physics 20 as a measure, there is every reason to be optimistic and to think that in 100 years when we close the 21st century our understanding today will look pristine compared to what we know then. We may discover whether beyond the standard model there is super symmetry or perhaps additional dimensions, and we hope that the The high-energy LHC will begin the journey to revolutionize particle physics in the 21st century.

What does the upgrade of the accelerator to energies of 13 TeV mean?
"As soon as you double the energy, you also double your accessibility to heavier particles because you cannot detect particles heavier than the energy with which you collide. Because of Einstein's formula E=MC^2ֶ there is complete equivalence between energy and mass. The upper limit of the mass to which you can Reaching it depends on the collision energy, so doubling the collision energy will double the mass range of the particles we are able to detect."

"On the research side, as we know, Israeli scientists are now heavily involved in studying the properties of the Higgs particle and in the search for new physics, whether it is super symmetry, dark matter or additional new Higgs particles. "This is a contribution with a significant impact. We are leading these searches." Prof. Gross concludes.

The next generation of muon detectors was built in Israel
When the accelerator was established, it was decided to concentrate all Israeli activity around one detector - the ion detector at the Atlas facility, and thus the Weizmann Institute, the Technion and Tel Aviv University joined them. The detectors were built mainly at the Weizmann Institute, and underwent tests at Tel Aviv University and the Technion.

"The upgrade allowed for an increase in energy levels, and did not affect the detectors." Says Prof. Ehud Duchovani from the Weizmann Institute. "It was needed following the major malfunction that occurred in 2009 with the magnets of the accelerator, as a result of one part exploding and causing damage to the magnets. A small connection that was incorrectly designed and poorly executed and led to the emission of heat. This failure of a small light bulb caused huge damage - 100 million dollars. Funnily enough The explosion dragged the cooling of the tunnel due to the release of huge amounts of liquid nitrogen and helium after the damaged part was repaired It was decided to operate the giant accelerator at about half its capacity, and in 2012 the repair began. Sarn engineers closed the accelerator for almost two years, opened each of the magnets and replaced the connections with a new type.

The operators of the detectors, including members of the Israeli group, took advantage of the time to repair or replace (as needed) damaged detectors, but according to Prof. Duchovani, they are already preparing for the next upgrade and building the next generation of detectors being built at the Weizmann Institute as before in full and harmonious cooperation with Tel Aviv University and the Technion.

Our parts in the muon detector can be compared to the gate alarms. You are in the city in a way and don't know when enemies are going to attack so you post guards at the gate. Most of the nights pass quietly, but sometimes there is an incident where the guards call the army. We are kind of guards, as soon as we see something suspicious in a certain collision we are the ones who call everyone else."

"We are now finishing five years of developing the detectors, and hope that during the year we will start building them because they should be ready and reach the axis in 2017 for the next upgrade expected in 2018.

At the same time, the three Israeli institutions are participating in data analysis, a field that will have increasing demand due to the expected huge increase in the number of collisions per second, collisions that will produce a lot of data that must be analyzed in order to locate interesting phenomena.

"Precisely, the Higgs boson will not be in the center. When we increase the energy of the machine, we slightly increase our ability to produce Higgs - about 2 times, but we know that the model we have, the standard model that predicted the existence of the Higgs is an incomplete model, there must be something beyond this model , phenomena that are supposed to solve difficulties and contradictions in the existing model, in a machine with an energy of TEV 8 we did not have enough energy to produce such particles and now the tension is if We will discover something new or not. Maybe we will discover new symmetry in the universe, and maybe nature will surprise us with an explanation that we didn't think of," concludes Prof. Duchovni

A video in which the renovation work for the particle accelerator in the axle is described

A special project on the Hidan site - official press tour in Seren

• Cern CEO Rolf Hoyer: My dream is to find the first particle of dark matter. First article following a tour of the Cern facilities
• CERN tour notes Part II: The door leading to the Big Bang
• CERN tour notes, part 3 Will we sail only if we know there is an America across the ocean? Prof. Eliezer Rabinovitch from the Hebrew University on the importance of basic science (Gallery - LHC)
• Part IV - Interview with Prof. Elam Gross - The discovery of the Higgs is the beginning of the science of the 21st century