Taking energy to the physics classroom from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN

Abstract

In 2008, the greatest experiment in history began. When in full operation, the LargeHadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will generate the greatest amount of information that hasever been produced in an experiment before. It will also reveal some of the mostfundamental secrets of nature.Despite the enormous amount of information available on this topic, it is not easy fornon-specialists to know where the data comes from. The aim of this article is to introduceat a secondary school level a few simple physical calculations about power phenomena thatwill be present in the LHC: stored beam energy, power and LHC dipole, energy stored inthe compact muon solenoid (CMS), energy stored in the ATLAS solenoid andtoroid, delivered energy for radiofrequency (RF) cavities, and energy dissipated indump blocks. In addition, we will be talking about one of the most importantscientific institutions in the world and introducing the greatest experiment in history.The calculations that you will find in this article are adapted from physics at secondaryschool level, and in most cases they are just very simple approaches to the correct results.