MOSCOW, June 29. /TASS/. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, has officially ended its scientific work and will now be shut down for four years while it enters its next phase, CERN’s press service said.
Over that period, the LHC will undergo a major upgrade and will be turned into a new scientific installation, High-Luminosity LHC (HiLumi LHC).
"The LHC has exceeded every expectation," said Oliver Bruning, CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology. "For nearly two decades, it has transformed our understanding of the Universe and inspired generations of scientists, engineers and citizens around the world. Today we say goodbye to the LHC as we have known it, while preparing to welcome its successor: the HiLumi LHC, which will extend this scientific adventure far into the future."
During the four-year pause, CERN specialists plan to make drastic changes to the facility, replacing some of its key elements. For example, a significant portion of its superconducting magnets will be replaced with new, more powerful ones. In the LHC caverns, next to its key detectors, scientists will install new equipment, capable of identifying and selecting the most interesting collisions from more than five billion interactions every second.
