Operators of the world's largest atom smasher Friday ramped up their massive machine to three times the energy ever previously achieved, in the run-up to experiments probing the secrets of the universe. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, said beams of protons circulated at 3.5 trillion electron volts in both directions around the 17-mile tunnel housing the Large Hadron Collider under the Swiss-French border at Geneva. The next major development is expected in a few days when CERN starts colliding the beams in a new round of research to examine the tiniest particles and forces within the atom in hopes of finding out more about how matter is made up. The collider in December had already eclipsed the record of the next most powerful machine, the Tevatron at Fermilab outside Chicago, which has been running just shy of a trillion electron volts, or TeV. The extra energy in Geneva is expected to reveal even more about the unanswered questions of particle physics, such as the existence of dark energy and matter. CERN has reported a series of successes since the collider was restarted last year after 14 months of repairs and improvements following a spectacular failure when scientists initially tried to get the machine going. CERN improved the machine during a 2½-month winter shutdown to be able to operate at the higher energy. “Getting the beams to 3.5 TeV is testimony to the soundness of the LHC's overall design, and the improvements we've made since the breakdown in September 2008,” said a CERN's official. CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer revealed that there had been a snag in reaching 3.5 TeV Friday. He said it increased the ramp time to 75 minutes from the expected 15 minutes. Heuer said the problem was in a phenomenon linked to the machine protection systems. Heuer said he expected the problem to be corrected. When the collisions start at the new, higher energy, CERN plans to run the collider continuously for 18-24 months, much longer than previously. This is because the machine operates at near absolute zero degrees, colder than outer space and shutting it off can require months to bring the equipment up to room temperature for any checks, repairs or improvements, CERN said. After two years of running the LHC will be shut down for about a year and the specialists will install improvements and make other changes to enable the collider to operate at its design energy of 7 TeV in each direction to produce collisions of 14 TeV.
