🎞️ The Large Hadron Collider beauty facility tour!
On Tuesday 14 November 2023, 45+ students from 14 schools came along to the CERN Zone to watch Jonathan, Janina and other members of the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) team tour the facility and share more about their work.
We’ve put together some of our favourite moments from the tour and you can
Let us know your favourite moment from the tour by commenting at the bottom of this post.
The emergency off switch
🎛️ The Control Room
After a brief introduction from Jonathan about the LHCb team and what their work focuses on, Janina showed us the control room. She showed us the emergency panel which would turn off the power to the Large Hadron Collider in case of a power cut or other failure.
She spoke about the equipment that they have to wear when they go down into the cavern to keep them protected. The dosimeter is a device used to measure levels of radiation that you have been exposed to.
Vertex Detector (VELO)
We were able to get a close up view of model parts of the detector. You are unable to see the Vertex Detector (VELO), the point where most particles collide, in the cavern as it is behind a concrete wall, due to the high levels of radiation.
The sensors can be moved very close together and track where the particles are flying through. It works like a camera!
👁️ The Cavern
To get down to the Cavern, the scientists have to pass a security check. They scan their personal dosimeters and retinas: if the two match up as belonging to you, then you are free to get in the lift to the cavern.
Dosimeter and retina scan
Janina accessed the LHC by taking a lift 103m underground. She explained how all the equipment gets assembled above ground then dropped down a hole in the ground to the cavern using a very long crane.
We started off by looking at the diople magnet, which is used to bend the path of particles, depending on their charge.
Next we saw the upstream detector and the scifi detector (which stands for scintillation fibre, not science fiction!). These show where the particle is coming from before and after it hits the magnet.
Behind the LHCb team sign is the concrete shielding wall for the VELO. When the particles travel, the VELO detects where they decay.
The Cavern
Janina went of to explain how lights that they use can identify the type of particle that they are working with. Have a look at the video to hear her in-depth explanation (22 minutes, 17 seconds).
The two yellow structures are calorimeters, particle detectors. These help reconstruct the path a neutron might have come from and precisely measures the energy a particle loses as it passes through the detector.
❓ Student questions
There were lots of great questions asked during the tour. Here are some of our favourites:
