The Large Hadron Collider?s connection to South Dakota

The big news in physics this weeky is … well, BIG NEWs in physics. The Large Hadron Collider at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland was turned on Wednesdayt. The LHC the largest particle accelerator ever built and the most powerful by a factor of 15. Here’s The nutshell version of the LHC story: The LHCt will collide beams of protons in “collision caverns,” then monitor and measure the spray of particles that results. Discoveries at the LHC have the potential to change physics forever. (See the New York Times story.)

There is a South Dakota connection. Dr. Jose Alonso, director of the Sanford Laboratory at Homestake, spent four years working on one of four detectors inside the LHC. Reporters from around the state interviewed Dr. Alonso yesterday. (See the AP story here. Watch KELO TV tonight at 5 p.m. MDT.)

Parts of the ATLAS detector were assembled at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where Dr. Alonso spent most of his career. He spent most of his time working on the “pixel tracker,” which is part of the “inner detector” of ATLAS. Dr. Alonso says discoveries at the LHC, especially in the realm of dark matter, could provide valuable data for experiments here at the Sanford Lab. The LUX detector, proposed for the 4850 Level at Homestake, approaches dark matter from a different perspective. ATLAS will look for the effects of “weakly interacting massive particles” on other particles. LUX will look for the WIMPs themselves.