Large Hadron Collider Upgrade Starts Amid Hopes to Upend Universe Theories

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A major project to upgrade the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at a European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) lab located in Geneva was launched on Friday in the hope that the revamped machine will provide new insights into particle physics and turn the standard theories of the universe upside down, The Guardian reported.
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According to The Guardian, the upgrade will make the LHC more sensitive to subtle quirks in the laws of physics, with the scientists hoping that it will pave the way for the new theories of the universe.

With the upgrade implemented, the number of collisions in the machine will be five to 10 times greater than today.

"The high-luminosity LHC is where we will collect most of our data, and in that sense it is the phase of our exploration that lets us find out most about the universe. If the LHC so far has given us a candle to illuminate what was previously unseen, the high-luminosity LHC will let us shine a searchlight," Tara Shears, a professor of physics at Liverpool University who works on the project, said, as quoted by the newspaper.

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The upgrade is supposed to take eight years. The LHC will see a two-year shutdown in 2019 as new magnets and beam instruments will be installed, while the bulk of the new equipment will be fitted during a longer switch-off from 2024 to 2026.

The LHC, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, was set up in 2008 with the view of gaining an insight into the mystery of dark matter. It consists of a 27-kilometer (17-mile) ring of superconducting magnets with several accelerating structures increasing the energy of particles.

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