Atom smasher to be closed

THE Large Hadron Collider (LHC) must close at the end of 2011 for up to a year to address design issues.

LHC director Dr Steve Myers said faults will delay the machine reaching its full potential for two years. The atom smasher will reach world record collision energies later this month at 7 trillion electron volts. But joints between the machine’s magnets must be strengthened before higher-energy collisions can begin. The Geneva-based machine only recently restarted after being out of action for 14 months following an accident in 2008.