A 25-year-old Maltese Ph.D. graduate has just completed research that will be used in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – one of the world’s largest and most powerful scientific instruments ever built.
Nicholas Sammut (right) worked on a mathematical model that will be used as an integral part of the control system of the LHC. The LHC is located at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.
CERN was founded in 1954 and is one of Europe’s first joint ventures. It is funded by 20 countries and has an annual budget of one billion Swiss francs (around Lm300 million).
Over 6,500 scientists and engineers from 80 different countries and 500 institutions make use of CERN’s facilities.
Dr Sammut explained that it carries out non-military fundamental research and aims at understanding the fundamental composition of matter at the subatomic scale.
“It also carries out research to try and understand the nature of interactive forces between particles,” he added. The organisation has a 63 km infrastructure of particle accelerators and detectors. “These immense machines are like massive microscopes and are capable of revealing the composition of matter itself by colliding particles with an energy that brings us closer to the conditions at the creation of the universe,” said Dr Sammut.
CERN’s main project, the LHC, started in 1982 and is still under construction. It should be switched on in 2007. “This accelerator measures 27km in circumference and its diameter is equivalent to the distance between Mdina and Valletta,” said Dr Sammut.
It is situated in a tunnel 100 metres underneath four towns in France and Switzerland.
Two counter rotating particle beams travel inside a vacuum around the LHC about 11,000 times in one second approaching the speed of light, said Dr Sammut. “These then collide in four massive detectors which are designed to cross new frontiers of the microcosm; to study the imbalance between matter and antimatter and perhaps even find evidence of multiple dimensions.” The heaviest detector weighs 12,500 tons and is almost twice as heavy as the Eiffel Tower.
The accelerator is made up of 1,200 superconducting magnets: each one is 15 m long and weighs 30 tons. Since they are superconducting, explained Dr Sammut, these magnets must be cooled to -271°Celsius, which is colder than the average temperature of the universe.
At this temperature, they can transport an incredibly large amount of electrical current (12,000 Amps) without resistance or energy loss. This current produces a magnetic field of 8 Tesla which is more than 100,000 times more powerful than the earth’s magnetic field. Thanks to such a strong magnetic field, the magnets bend the particle beams along the accelerator’s circular trajectory.
Dr Sammut developed a mathematical model based on a large sample of complex measurements that will enable the LHC to reach its demanding operation requirements. Without the mathematical model, the performance of the LHC would be seriously jeopardized. He also developed a data acquisition system for an instrument used to perform critical precision measurements at a high speed.
CERN’s role for the past 52 years has been to use science to create powerful ties between European countries. Dr Sammut also explained that one of the most publicly known spin-offs from CERN is the World Wide Web (WWW). It was originally invented in 1990 to ease communication between scientists in different countries spread around the world. “The WWW has not only changed the facet of communication and commerce worldwide but has also altered our daily life,” he said. At present, CERN is heading the development of the second generation WWW known as the Grid. “Apart from transferring data as is the case now with the WWW, the Grid will also enable the transfer of processing power,” said Dr Sammut.
Other important technologies that emerged from the research carried out at CERN include new techniques in cancer therapy as well as medical imaging, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), which have revolutionised medical diagnosis and treatment world wide.
Dr Sammut’s research resulted in 12 international publications and was carried out as a collaboration project between the Department of Electrical Systems in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Malta and the Accelerator Technology Division at CERN under the supervision of Prof. Ing. Joseph Micallef (UoM) and Dr Luca Bottura (CERN).