Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

Article By:

Evans, Lyndon CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), Geneva, Switzerland.

Last reviewed:August 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.371607

Show previous versions

• Large Hadron Collider (LHC), published February 2019:Download PDF Get Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Large Hadron Collider (LHC), published March 2018:Download PDF Get Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Large Hadron Collider (LHC), published January 2009:Download PDF Get Adobe Acrobat Reader

The largest and most powerful particle accelerator ever built. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is located at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland (Fig. 1). The LHC consists of two rings in which two counterrotating beams of protons (which are composite particles called hadrons) or heavy ions are brought into collision at four points around the ring containing particle detectors. The detectors register the energy and matter produced by the shattering and scattering of the beams' contents. The protons in the beams are accelerated to an energy of 6.8 teraelectronvolts (1 TeV = 10¹² eV) for a combined collision energy of 13.6 TeV. This energy level is about 6.5 times that achieved in the Tevatron, the most powerful particle physics instrument in the world prior to the LHC. The LHC began its operations in 2008, reaching a world record for beam intensity of 1.18 TeV and collisions at 2.36 TeV in late 2009. See also: Collision (physics); Electronvolt; Hadron; Ion; Particle accelerator; Physics; Proton

The content above is only an excerpt.