Ambitious exploration of the universe with the largest particle accelerator in history.

The FCC project, with a circumference of up to 91km – more than three times longer than the current Large Hadron Collider – will be built underground, along the French-Swiss border and even extending beneath Lake Geneva.

Leading scientists at CERN, the world's largest nuclear research organization, unveiled on April 1st the detailed plans for the Future Circular Collider (FCC) project – a particle accelerator far exceeding any previous scientific work.

If approved, this project, worth 14 billion Swiss francs (approximately $16 billion), would become the "golden key" to unlocking humanity's deepest mysteries of the universe.

The FCC project, with a circumference of up to 91km – more than three times longer than the current Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – will be built underground, along the French-Swiss border and even extending beneath Lake Geneva.

This accelerator will operate in two phases: the first phase in the mid-2040s to conduct highly precise experiments on known physical phenomena, before moving into the second phase in 2070 with high-energy collisions of protons and heavy ions.

According to Giorgio Chiarelli, research director at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Italy, these experiments could open "a door to the unknown."

He emphasized that the history of physics has proven that with more data, human intelligence can extract information far beyond initial expectations.

One of the FCC's core objectives is to conduct more in-depth research on the Higgs boson – a particle of fundamental importance in explaining how matter acquires mass after the Big Bang.

In 2013, CERN confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson thanks to the LHC, but countless questions about the nature of this particle remain unanswered.

CERN Director Fabiola Gianotti asserted that this future particle accelerator could become "the most extraordinary tool humanity has ever built" to study the fundamental laws of nature in two ways: improving our understanding of the Higgs boson and expanding the scope of high-energy physics exploration to discover new principles about the formation and evolution of the universe.

CERN is expected to make a final decision in 2028 on whether or not to proceed with the project. As an international organization with 24 member countries (mostly European, along with Israel), CERN will need the consensus and financial contributions from these countries.

The United States currently has the largest number of scientists working at CERN, with approximately 2,000 people, although they are not official members.

Under President Joe Biden's administration, the U.S. has committed to supporting research and collaborative efforts to build the FCC, but the future of this support remains uncertain, especially in light of the current Trump administration's policy of cutting research funding.

(VNA/Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/tham-vong-kham-pha-vu-tru-voi-may-gia-toc-hat-lon-nhat-lich-su-post1024269.vnp