Instruments

Large Hadron Collider

Also Known As LHC

Citation Formats

General Reference

Science Atlas. "Large Hadron Collider." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-science.interactiveatlas.org/instruments/large-hadron-collider.

APA Style

Science Atlas. (n.d.). Large Hadron Collider. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-science.interactiveatlas.org/instruments/large-hadron-collider

BibTeX

@misc{scienceatlas-large-hadron-collider,
  author = {Science Atlas},
  title = {Large Hadron Collider},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-science.interactiveatlas.org/instruments/large-hadron-collider},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The Large Hadron Collider is a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets built underground on the French-Swiss border near Geneva, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It sends two beams of protons in opposite directions around the ring at close to the speed of light and collides them at four points, where detectors including ATLAS and CMS record what the collision produces. Approved in 1994 and built through the 1990s and 2000s as a multinational CERN project with no single inventor, it achieved first beam on 10 September 2008; a magnet fault nine days later forced over a year of repairs before collisions resumed in November 2009. It is the instrument that produced the collisions in which the Higgs boson was first observed in 2012.

Facts

Invented Year

2008 1

2008 is the year of first beam, not an invention date: the collider was designed and built collectively by CERN over roughly a decade and credited to no single inventor, the same honest-null choice this atlas's institution entries make for founder wherever no one person founded the body.

Measures

Collision products of proton and lead-ion beams, used to study the Higgs boson, dark matter and matter-antimatter asymmetry. 1

Operating Principle

Two beams travel in opposite directions at near light speed through separate pipes, guided by superconducting magnets and accelerated by radiofrequency cavities, then steered into collision at four points around the ring where particle detectors record the results. 1

Operating Range

13.6 TeV nominal proton-proton collision energy (6.8 TeV per beam), 5.36 TeV per nucleon pair for lead-ion collisions, a ring circumference of 26,659 meters, with magnets operated at 1.9 kelvin. 1

Open Questions

Resolution

Not stated as a single figure for the accelerator itself; resolution at the LHC is a property of its individual detectors, such as ATLAS and CMS, rather than of the collider ring.

No resolution figure applies to the collider as a whole. Retry without SourceSlug after ambiguous duplicate citation rejection (FactQueueId 852).

Cross-Tradition Connections

Operated By

CERN

Source Large Hadron Collider (CERN)

Used In

2012 Higgs Boson Observation

Source The Higgs Boson (CERN)

Physics

Source Large Hadron Collider (CERN)

Sources

1. Large Hadron Collider (CERN)

CERNPhysics section

Quote, Physics section

the nature of dark matter

View the Source

1. Large Hadron Collider (CERN)

CERNCERN LHC home page

Quote, CERN LHC home page

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It consists of a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way.

View the Source

1. Large Hadron Collider (CERN)

CERNFacts and figures

Quote, Facts and figures