Paper on Safety of Large Hadron Collider to be Published

Particle colliders creating black holes that could devour the Earth. Sounds like a great Hollywood script.

But, according to University of California Santa Barbara physics professor Steve Giddings, it's pure fiction.

Giddings has co-authored a paper, "Astrophysical implications of hypothetical stable TeV-scale black holes," that has been accepted for publication in an upcoming edition of the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review D, documenting his study of the safety of microscopic black holes that might possibly be produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is nearing completion in Europe. The paper, co-authored by Michelangelo Mangano of the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), which is building the world's largest particle collider, investigates hypothesized behavior of tiny black holes that might be created by high-energy collisions in the CERN particle accelerator.

If they appear at all, these black holes would exist for "about a nano-nano-nanosecond," Giddings says, adding that they would have no effect of consequence. However, the paper studies whether there could be any large-scale effects in an extremely hypothetical situation where the black holes don't evaporate.

The Giddings/Mangano study concludes that such microscopic black holes would be harmless. In fact, he added, nature is continuously creating LHC-like collisions when much higher-energy cosmic rays collide with the Earth's atmosphere, with the Sun, and with other objects such as white dwarfs and neutron stars. If such collisions posed a danger, the consequences for Earth or these astronomical objects would have become evident already, Giddings said.

"The future health of our planet and the safety of its people are of paramount concern to us all," Giddings says. "There were already very strong physics arguments that there is no risk from hypothetical micro black holes, and we've provided additional arguments ruling out risk even under very bizarre hypotheses."

The LHC, near Geneva, Switzerland, is expected to begin operations this summer. It will collide proton beams at levels of energy never before produced in a particle accelerator. Those results will then be studied for clues to new forces of nature, and possibly even extra dimensions of space. The first collision of beams is likely to be in September. The $8 billion project has taken 14 years.

Two men have filed a federal lawsuit in Hawaii in an attempt to halt the LHC due to their concerns about the safety of black holes. Giddings' study has been cited by CERN as evidence of the safety of the LHC.

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Last Large Piece of ATLAS Scientific Detector Lowered Underground

Researchers in the U.S. ATLAS collaboration have joined colleagues around the world to celebrate a pivotal landmark in the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the lowering of the final piece of the ATLAS particle detector into the underground collision hall at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Experiments conducted at this revolutionary LHC facility, poised to become the world's most powerful particle accelerator, may help scientists unravel some of the deepest mysteries in particle physics. The U.S. branch of the collaboration (U.S. ATLAS), based out of the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, built and delivered several key elements of the ATLAS detector.

"We're proud of the teams involved in this international scientific endeavor - one of the largest collaborative efforts ever attempted in the physical sciences," says Dennis Kovar, acting associate director for High Energy Physics in DOE's Office of Science. "This technical landmark brings us a huge step closer to unveiling a new level of understanding of our universe."

Of the almost 2,100 participants in the ATLAS collaboration, about 420 are U.S. physicists, engineers, and graduate students. Hailing from 38 universities and four national laboratories, these U.S. collaborators are supported by DOE and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The last piece of ATLAS lowered into the ATLAS experimental cavern is one of two elements known as the small wheels. The two ATLAS small wheels, though little in comparison to the rest of the ATLAS detector, are each about 30 feet in diameter and weigh 100 tons. The wheels are covered with sensitive detectors that will be used to identify and measure the momentum of subatomic particles called muons that are created in collisions at the LHC. The entire detector system has an area equal to three football fields, consisting of 100 million independent
electronic channels. As charged particles pass through a magnetic field created by superconducting magnets, this detector has the ability to accurately track them to the precision of the width of a human hair.

"This is a remarkable milestone in the complicated construction of the ATLAS detector," say Joseph Dehmer, director of the Physics Division at the NSF. "The LHC is one of the most exciting physics experiments for this decade and beyond. We are impressed by the hundreds of U.S. university and national laboratory scientists who are working hard to make this extraordinary project a reality. We look forward to the groundbreaking results that are now just around the corner."

Involving the work of 450 physicists from 48 institutions around the world, lowering this last small wheel marks the end of a decade of planning and construction of the muon spectrometer system.

"For me personally, this is the culmination of many years of work designing, planning, and installing the mechanical structure," says Vincent Hedberg, who led the development of the small wheel support system. "For ATLAS as a whole, the last large detector is finally in place."

Brookhaven National Laboratory led the development of the 32 muon detectors in the inner ring of the wheels, working with Stony Brook University, the University of Arizona, and the University of California, Irvine. In addition, numerous U.S. universities built the 64 precision muon chambers on the small wheels; these include: the University of Michigan, University of Washington, Seattle, and the Boston Muon Consortium, which involves Boston University,
Brandeis University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tufts University.

"These fragile detectors comprise the largest measuring device ever constructed
for high-energy physics," said George Mikenberg, ATLAS muon project leader.

Experiments at the LHC will allow physicists to take a big leap in their exploration of the universe. The ATLAS detector may help its scientists unravel some of the deepest mysteries in particle physics such as the origin of mass or the identification of dark matter. The ATLAS collaboration will now focus on commissioning the detector in preparation for the start-up of the LHC this
summer.

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