Sprung a leak: A large dipole magnet is symbolically lowered into the tunnel in Geneva in April 2007 to mark the end of a crucial phase of installation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Credit: AFP/CERN
GENEVA: The world's largest atom-smasher has been shut down for two months following a helium leak, just ten days after it began its quest to probe the secrets of the universe.
"There has been an incident in a test. One section of the machine will have to be repaired," said James Gillies, a spokesman for the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).
Helium leak
A fault occurred on Friday afternoon, resulting in a "large helium leak into the tunnel," CERN said in a statement. "Preliminary investigations suggest that the most likely cause of the problem was a faulty electrical connection between two magnets, which probably melted at high current leading to mechanical failure," it said.
There was no risk to people, added the centre, saying that a full probe was underway. "There are people in the tunnel right now, we'll be giving updates as soon as we can," said Gillies.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was started on September 10, with physicists cheering the successful testing of a clockwise beam, comprising strings of protons, and then an anticlockwise beam in preparatory testing ahead of first particle collisions.
But the LHC had to be shut down a week later due to an electrical hitch that affected a cooling system for high-powered magnets designed to steer beams of particles around the LHC's 27-kilometre circular tunnel.
Two months minimum
The cooling system is important as the steering magnets in the LHC tunnel are chilled to as low as -271 ºC, which is close to absolute zero and colder than deep outer space. At this extreme temperature, electrical currents overcome resistance, thus making it easier and cheaper to power electro-magnets.
The LHC was only turned back on again on Friday, but the latest setback has once again forced operations to halt.
As the sector where the fault occurred would have to be warmed up from its extreme temperature for repairs to take place, the LHC would now be halted for "a minimum of two months," resulting in further delays to the first collisions.
