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The Large Hadron Collider—Background and History

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The Large Hadron Collider

Abstract

This introductory chapter gives a short account of the history of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, i.e. it describes the rationale for the LHC, the situation of high energy physics in the period in which the LHC was initially conceived, and the development of the project from first ideas to first beams in the machine. In doing so, some emphasis is put on the comparison of the LHC with other \({\textit{pp}}\) or \(p{\bar{{\textit{p}}}}\) collider projects, which are also discussed from a historical point of view. Finally, the development of the LHC experimental collaborations is sketched.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The excellent book of the same name edited by Evans [1] provides an abundance of useful information about the subject. A short discussion especially of the transition from LEP to LHC is provided by Schopper [2].

  2. 2.

     When, in 1981, the decision about location and circumference of the LEP tunnel had to be taken in the light of geologically dangerous ground beneath the Jura mountains, then CERN director general Herwig Schopper argued that the suggested smaller circumference of 22 km would make a successful \({\textit{pp}}\) collider in the LEP tunnel impossible [2].

  3. 3.

     See the excellent book by Cahn and Goldhaber [6] for a historical account of particle physics.

  4. 4.

     See the two articles [7, 8] for a historical perspective.

  5. 5.

     “The Higgs mechanism works, but it can hardly represent the whole truth: it’s implementation [...] is far too ugly and arbitrary” [11].

  6. 6.

     It is interesting to note that in the literature of that time, there is no connection drawn between supersymmetry and the phenomenon of dark matter, the existence of which had been postulated since the 1930s.

  7. 7.

     The proton-antiproton option was also studied, but it was quickly understood that the necessary luminosity would be difficult to achieve with antiproton beams.

  8. 8.

     See the article [16] about a discussion, from 1973, of fixed target versus colliding beams.

  9. 9.

     See the review article on CERN synchrotrons by Brianti [3] for more details on the CERN machines since the 1950s.

  10. 10.

     The SPS first managed to deliver beams at 400 GeV on 17 June 1976, which would have been a world record had not the Tevatron achieved 500 GeV just 4 weeks before, on 14 May 1976, see Sect. 1.2.4.

  11. 11.

     The same report still talks about a “hypothetical site” for LEP construction.

  12. 12.

     The DØ experiment had been operational since 1992.

  13. 13.

     The websites [45, 46] show a few impressions from the abandoned tunnel.

  14. 14.

     Today, the tunnel constructed for ISABELLE houses the heavy-ion collider RHIC.

  15. 15.

     Note, however, that the cost estimates for building the SSC close to Fermilab, and thus using the Tevatron and its facilities as injector, were, according to most sources, not significantly lower than for the Texas site.

  16. 16.

     As an example, in the site-selection process, a proposal locating the SSC across the US–Canadian border was rejected partly because of its not being fully national.

  17. 17.

     It is interesting to read, in parallel, accounts of the SSC–LHC competition written by SSC advocates [49] and by LHC supporters [2]. Even when talking about the same events, e.g. a US Congress hearing in April 1987, they seem to be telling rather different stories. Especially the evaluation of efforts for international collaboration on the SSC is very different—even in texts written 15 years after SSC cancellation.

  18. 18.

     The quark-quark parton luminosity here is obtained by using the quark-antiquark parton luminosity for \(p{\bar{{\textit{p}}}}\)  collisions.

  19. 19.

     Note that, due to the large total proton-proton cross section, luminosities beyond values of around \(10^{36}\,{\mathrm{{cm}}^{-2}\,{\mathrm{{s}}^{-1}}}\) do not result in an increased physics potential, but only in massively reduced beam lifetimes.

  20. 20.

     “It was only the resilience and conviction of Carlo Rubbia [...] that kept the project alive” [18].

  21. 21.

     Note that in the La Thuile workshop [54] even the possibility of also having \(p{\bar{{\textit{p}}}}\)  collisions—at much reduced luminosity—in the LHC is mentioned. Also, from very early days of LHC discussions on, the complementarity of “high-precision” \(e^{+}e^{-}\) instruments like LEP and of “high-energy” machines like the LHC has been stressed [12]. In Aachen, Rubbia also discussed the necessity of linear \(e^{+}e^{-}\) colliders “such as CLIC”: “In particular the LHC has to be conceived as a machine precursory to CLIC [...] As often in the past a first ‘exploratory’ phase with hadron collisions is necessary precursory to the second ‘consolidating’ phase using electrons and positrons”.

  22. 22.

     This idea was only given up in 1995, when it was decided to dismantle LEP in order to gain space for the LHC. However, nobody had really pursued the idea of \(ep\) physics in the LEP/LHC tunnel seriously.

  23. 23.

     In fact, mainly the UK and Germany opposed the plan and even managed to get the voting procedures in Council changed to a scheme that favoured the larger contributors.

  24. 24.

     Detailed technical discussions of the existing large LHC experiments can be found in Chap. 3. An overview of the organisation, funding and management of large collaborations can be found in [60, 61].

  25. 25.

     These numbers do not contain the extraordinary efforts from laboratories and universities around that world that contributed to the experiments using national funding sources.

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  1. DESY, Notkestr. 85, 22607, Hamburg, Germany

    Thomas Schörner-Sadenius

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    Thomas Schörner-Sadenius

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Schörner-Sadenius, T. (2015). The Large Hadron Collider—Background and History. In: Schörner-Sadenius, T. (eds) The Large Hadron Collider. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15001-7_1

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