After a nearly four-year hiatus, the world’s largest particle collider was switched on in Switzerland on Tuesday, and its operator announced the discovery of three new “exotic particles.”
The Large Hadron Collider, operated by CERN, will propel particles around its 17-mile-long ring at nearly the speed of light for the next four years, according to the research lab. In the particle accelerator’s so-called Run 3 of experiments, the collider will operate at an “unprecedented” energy level, attempting to discover new particles, according to CERN. The Geneva-based research organization announced the discovery of never-before-seen particles on the same day the LHC was fired up.
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“After over three years of upgrade and maintenance work, the LHC is now set to run for close to four years at the record energy of 13.6 trillion electronvolts (TeV), providing greater precision and discovery potential,” CERN said in a statement.
The organization added that “a round of applause broke out” in the control room as the system began successfully recording new high-energy collisions.
The observation of three new particles could provide clues about the force that holds subatomic particles together.
Scientists at the international lab announced the discovery of a new kind of “pentaquark” and the first-ever pair of “tetraquarks” on Tuesday.
Since the LHC began operating in 2008, over 60 new particles have been discovered by smashing together atoms at the Swiss lab.
“The more analyses we perform, the more kinds of exotic hadrons we find,” said Niels Tuning, an experiment coordinator at the LHC. “We’re witnessing a period of discovery similar to the 1950s when a ‘particle zoo’ of hadrons started being discovered and ultimately led to the quark model of conventional hadrons in the 1960s. We’re creating ‘particle zoo 2.0.’”
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The LHC uses an underground ring of superconducting magnets to accelerate tiny particles along a circuit and smash them together, hopefully revealing new particles.
The announcement of the exotic particle discoveries and the start of the LHC’s third run came a day after CERN celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the confirmation of the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle thought to be a fundamental building block of the universe.
