An explanation of luminosity is given here and starts out innocently enough -
Luminosity (L) is one of the** most important parameters** of an accelerator.
[COLOR=#000000]It´s a measurement of the** number of collisions that can be produced in a detector per cm2 and per second. **[/COLOR]The bigger is the value of L, the bigger is the number of collisions. To calculate the number of collisions we need also to consider the cross section .
but gets very hairy very quickly. However I think for the purposes of a general understanding, you can probably stop there (I certainly did :o ).
The new magnets will be made from niobium tin rather than niobium titanium.
Last week the US LHC Accelerator Research Program, or LARP, successfully tested a new type of magnet required to boost the power of the LHC—or the luminosity of its particle beams—by a factor of 10.
LARP is a collaboration among the US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven, Fermi, Lawrence Berkeley and SLAC national laboratories, working in partnership with CERN.
The improved magnets are one of the most critical components in a series of LHC upgrades that will be implemented over the next ten years. In the accelerator, magnets squeeze and focus beams of charged particles, directing them to a point of high-energy collision inside a detector. The new magnets, along with other upgrades, will allow the LHC to collect a larger amount of data at higher energies, making it possible to search for more massive potentially hidden particles than ever before.
The maximum energy per nucleon will still be 14Tev (1148 Tev for lead nuclei???) when the collider reaches it design maximum, but if I understand the article correctly, it will mean an order of magnitude increase in the production of useful data.
Not only that, but the manufacture technique should be transferable to other technologies that rely on superconducting magnets like MRIs.
The new technology has applications beyond high-energy physics. Plans are already in motion to incorporate these magnets into medical practices such as imaging and cancer treatment.
As the LHC continues to be streamlined, physicists hope to see further beyond the veil, piecing together the truth behind dark matter, dark energy, extra dimensions and other mysteries. At this scale of luminosity, previously undiscovered particles may even begin to appear.
So now will it bring about the end of the world?
One hopes so, they’re way behind schedule!
DMark
July 12, 2013, 3:40pm
4
But this time, there will be plenty of light to see it all happen!
AaronX
July 12, 2013, 4:05pm
5
But we still don’t know how they work.
…or how soon we will have to wait to see them in shake flashlights .
