Dictionary

Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator in the research centre CERN. From the point of view of relativity theory, it has several points of interest: First of all, it accelerates protons to higher energies than ever, allowing new tests of the relativistic quantum field theories that are at the core of modern particle physics. Secondly, at such high energies, there should be first traces of an as-yet unproven symmetry of nature called supersymmetry, which plays an important role in string theory, one of the candidates for a theory of quantum gravity (the quantum theory version of Einstein’s general relativity). Finally, the high energies are interesting because they give information about the very early high temperature universe, and about the physics that should be included in the big bang models of relativistic cosmology.

CERN website