K.S.Parthasarathy
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Friday, September 19, 2008, Chandigarh, India
Big Bang experiment
Possible gains, Indian role
K.S. Parthasarathy
The multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment, which began on September 10, is expected to create on earth at the end of an year, the conditions that existed billionth of a second after the Big Bang. When fully operational LHC experiment will deliver 600 million “mini” Big Bangs every second. Massive detectors will monitor these.
LHC experiment may answer some of the most fundamental questions in physics. The Standard Model of matter predicted the existence of an array of fundamental particles. Scientists have detected all except the Higgs bosons. If LHC detects Higgs boson, Peter Higgs, 79, an emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh will win Nobel Prize for a theory he expounded 44 years ago. He may also receive a hundred dollar bet from his archrival, Stephen Hawking!
Scientists may never find Higgs boson. John Ellis, a theoretical physicist at CERN believes that additional dimensions of space could somehow do the job that Higgs boson does in the Standard Model. String theorists had such expectations of extra dimensions. Alan Boyle, science writer, quotes Lisa Randall, the Harvard physicist as saying that the LHC will nail down the evidence of extra dimensions in five years.
At a more mundane level, do we gain anything from this indecently expensive experiment? Can’t we do something more useful with that kind of money?
“Let me answer with an emphatic NO. Finding out how our universe works has never been a bad idea”, Brian Cox, a professor at the University of Manchester and a participant in the LHC experiment, has been unapologetic about the venture. “In fact, it is the quest for a deeper understanding of nature that has given us everything we now take for granted in modern life”.
He unabashedly declared that curiosity-driven research led to virtually all of the great discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries. “The transistor emerged from quantum theory of solids, not from a desire to build computers and television”, he argued. Great discoveries seldom came out of pragmatic process of innovation.
Some physicists claim that the atom smasher may help scientists treat diseases, improve the internet and open the door to travel through extra dimensions. Earlier atom smashers led to the development of technologies such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans which help to pinpoint cancer cells.
Andy Parker, a professor of high energy physics at Cambridge University, UK believes that you can send a beam of protons into a cancer patient, which does essentially no damage at all to the tissues on the way in; all the damage is done at the point where the protons stop. By tuning the energy of the protons you can make them stop inside the tumours located deep inside the bodies and blast them away. Physicians may be able to carry out more widely proton therapy which now has limited applications. As scientists working with the LHC learn to better focus and control proton beams, the refinements may trickle down to medical profession.
A less certain but more exotic benefit as spinoff from this mega project is that it could open the door to technologies that allow people to travel faster than the speed of light Sci-Fi boffins will have their imagination running riot!
The six experiments at the LHC will produce, after due filtering, 15 petabytes (10 to the 15th power) of data annually to be stored at CERN. A worldwide LHC grid, a global network of 60,000 computers made accessible to a few thousand scientists globally will analyse the data.
“We are doing things that are at the boundaries of science…But the technologies, the methods and the results will be picked up by industry”, Ruth Pordes, executive director of the Open Science Grid at Fermilab in Chicago, told Associated Press.
“Scientists expect grid computing to become more widely used in future, for research ranging from new drugs to more effective nuclear power. Eventually, consumers will start seeing it used in daily life to regulated traffic, predict the weather and even boost a flagging economy”, AP columnist, Frank Jordan believes.
“It would not be the first time that happened in CERN. In 1990, a young British researcher there created a computer based system for sharing information with colleagues around the world”, Jordan noted the birth of World Wide Web.
What is India’s role in this high-tech experiment?
The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), the cradle of high-energy physics and cosmic ray research in India from late 40s, has been fruitfully collaborating with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) since the 70s. This helped in inking a cooperation agreement for a 10-year period between the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and CERN in 1991.
DAE’s motivation was the desire to increase the pace of accelerator development in India and to give a thrust to experimental high-energy research programme.
In March 1996, DAE and CERN signed a protocol under which India joined the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment and agreed to make “in-kind” contributions in the form of skilled manpower, software and hardware to the tune of $25 million. CERN set apart half the contribution as an “India fund” to cover the expenses of Indian scientists at CERN and to meet foreign exchange required for some of the contributions. In LHC project, India like USA has “observer” status.
India’s first contribution to the LHC complex was two large capacity liquid nitrogen tanks (3.4 metre diameter and 10.6 metre tall, double walled, vacuum and perlite insulated) each of 50,000 litre with a liquid withdrawal rate of 2kg/s. The tanks worked well with less than 100 l/day evaporation rate, much below the specified value.
Cryogenic experts from RRCAT, participated in analysis of performance data generated during commissioning of LHC cryo- systems to help debug the Deficiencies.
As “in-kind” contribution, India provided 7080 precision magnet positioning stands jacks, nearly 1800 SC corrector magnets, 5500 quench heater protection supplies, 1435 local protection units, 70 circuit breakers etc; scientists and engineers from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology, Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Electronics Corporation of India Limited, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited etc. spent 125 man-years towards magnetic tests and measurements and help in commissioning LHC sub systems.
Universities of Delhi, Punjab, Aligarh, Rajasthan, Jammu, Viswa Bharati and Indian Institute of Technology are participating in the LHC experiment.
Indian scientists participated in building, installation, software analysis, Monte Carlo studies, physics simulation and analysis of Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) and A Large Colloider Experiment (ALICE), two of the four detector systems of LHC.
The writer is former Secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board
