Made-in-Canada super deep freezers to be used at LHC at CERN
Staff Writer |
The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, announced that the government is enhancing Canada's place on the world stage with a $10-million investment in the most powerful particle accelerator in the world.
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The investment will help upgrade the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), an international laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland.
The funding will provide Canadian researchers with ongoing access to this international lab and put Canadian science and technology at the heart of a global experiment to reveal the origins and nature of our universe.
Canadian experts at Vancouver's TRIUMF lab will lead the production of key elements for the accelerator with a $2 million in-kind contribution for a total project value of $12 million.
The funding will be used to build five superconducting crab cavity cryomodules — the components of what can be described as very sophisticated super deep freezers that house the crab cavities.
When installed at CERN, the cryomodules will cool down the subatomic particles to just above absolute zero, allowing researchers to manipulate these particles before they smash together.
This means Canadian science and technology are at the heart of a global experiment to reveal the origins and nature of our universe.
These super deep freezers are mission critical for the crab cavities to manipulate and rotate bunches of subatomic particles before they smash together—a crucial step to enable researchers to significantly increase the number of collisions of the LHC.
Canadians will build and provide the parts for these super deep freezers. Canadian industry, including companies in British Columbia, will be involved in the production of these high-tech components.
The LHC, located on the Franco-Swiss border, accelerates particles along a 27 km ring that runs 100 m underground.
The LHC was instrumental in the discovery of the Higgs boson particle in 2012, a subatomic particle that offers insight into the origins of the universe. ■