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The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the biggest particle accelerator on Earth. It was built to study matter in more detail than ever before and prove physical theories like the Standard Model of Particle Physics. This talk will focus on the engineering aspects of LHC. How was it built? What makes it tick? Which technologies are needed to create a such powerful machine? This talk will take you on a journey to explore how the most complex machine ever built by humans works.

During previous CCCs, several talks described what kind of data the experiments of LHC look out for, how the data is stored, how physicists are analysing data and how they extract their huge discoveries. Often times though, the presence of the particle accelerator itself is taken for granted in light of these findings. That's why this talk will give an in-depth engineering summary about that 'particle accelerator'. We'll shed light on the big technology and engineering problems that had to be solved before being able to build a machine that we take for granted these days. Among other things, we will describe how to cool down several thousand tons of magnets to -271.25°C, how to safely dissipate ~500 MegaJoule of energy in just a fraction of a second, or how to bend a beam of particles around a corner while it's moving along with ~99,9999991% of the speed of light. Of course, we'll also touch on the bits that make collecting the data gathered in all the physics detectors possible in the first place.

Other people: thasti

The REXUS/BEXUS programme allows students from universities and higher education colleges across Europe to carry out scientific and technological experiments on research rockets and balloons. Each year, two rockets and two balloons are launched, carrying up to 20 experiments designed and built by student teams. By reference of two experiments we were involved in, we will explain the way from the experiment idea to the launch and test of it.

Bringing an experiment into space aboard a sounding rocket or into the higher atmosphere aboard a balloon is not as hard as one might think. Students from Europe can simply write a proposal and apply for the REXUS/BEXUS programme, which is realised by an agreement between the German and Swedish space agencies, DLR (German: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) and SNSB (Swedish National Space Board, Swedish: Rymdstyrelsen). The Swedish share is furthermore accessible to teams from other European countries through ESA. For REXUS, two sounding rockets are launched from northern Sweden every year, each one capable of carrying up to 5 experiments (max. experiment payload mass approx. 40kg) to an altitude of 80-90km. The experiments have to be engineered to withstand at least 20g of acceleration during ascent and descent, and experience milli-gravity when close to the apogee. In addition, the space specific thermal and vacuum environment need to be considered. Since the altitude is too low for reaching an orbit, the rocket motor and payload falls back to ground and is recovered by helicopters. The experiments are then returned to the student teams and the data from the 10min flight can be analysed, for instance, atmospheric measurements or technology demonstrators. Similarly for BEXUS, two balloons per year are launched from the same location in Sweden and allow for carrying up to 12 experiments (max. 100kg). The balloon lifts the gondola with inside experiments to an altitude between 25-30km. After some hours of floating, the balloon is separated and the gondola descents on a parachute. The payload is then recovered by a helicopter and returned to the launch site by truck. During the talk we will present two experiments which we were involved in: - Fiber Optical Vibration Sensing Experiment launched on RX15 in May 2014, and - Advanced Receiver Concepts for ADS-B Experiment launched on BX18 in October 2014 Beside this, we will explain, how other interested students can participate in the next REXUS/BEXUS cycle.

Other people: panic