Spruce Neck Hadron Collider
| SNHC | |
|---|---|
| General Info | |
| Location | Spruce Neck |
| Construction Started | June 4, 2016 |
| Construction Ended | TBD |
| Hazard Rank | LHR 0 |
| Staff | |
| Facility Director | Derpy_Melon |
The Spruce Neck Hadron Collider (SNHC) is the MRT’s first, largest, and most powerful particle accelerator. It first started construction on June 4, 2016. The SNHC consists of a 100-block in diameter ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way.
Technology
Inside the accelerator, two high-energy particle beams travel at close to the speed of light before they are made to collide. The beams travel in opposite directions in separate beam pipes – two tubes kept at ultrahigh vacuum. They are guided around the accelerator ring by a strong magnetic field maintained by superconducting electromagnets. The electromagnets are built from coils of special electric cable that operates in a superconducting state, efficiently conducting electricity without resistance or loss of energy. This requires chilling the magnets to ‑271.3°C – a temperature colder than outer space. For this reason, much of the accelerator is connected to a distribution system of liquid helium, which cools the magnets, as well as to other supply services.
Thousands of magnets of different varieties and sizes are used to direct the beams around the accelerator. These include 1232 dipole magnets 15 metres in length which bend the beams, and 392 quadrupole magnets, each 5–7 meters long, which focus the beams. Just prior to collision, another type of magnet is used to "squeeze" the particles closer together to increase the chances of collisions. The particles are so tiny that the task of making them collide is akin to firing two needles 10 kilometres apart with such precision that they meet halfway.
Purpose
Physicists hope that the SNHC will help answer some of the fundamental open questions in physics, concerning the basic laws governing the interactions and forces among the elementary objects, the deep structure of space and time, and in particular the interrelation between quantum mechanics and general relativity, where current theories and knowledge are unclear or break down altogether. Data is also needed from high-energy particle experiments to suggest which versions of current scientific models are more likely to be correct – in particular to choose between the Standard Model and Higgsless models and to validate their predictions and allow further theoretical development.