Daria Strekalina, PhD in Chemistry, Head of Department of Physics at Moscow Polytech, lead expert at “Mega Science” center, member of collaboration project LHCb at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research, the largest lab in physics that carries out Large Hadron Collider experiments), TedX and Geek Picnic (large European popular scientific festival and open-air devoted to advanced technologies, science and creativity) speaker.
Daria Strekalina, one of the leading researchers in Russia, in the podcast Sciencepost: galloping the Hadron Collider of the daily capital newspaper “Evening Moscow”, told about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator in the world for research in various fields of physics. Daria shared interesting facts about in pursue of which purposes the collider is used, which kind of research is being conducted on it, as well as about her project that she leads within the framework of LHC in the laboratory of Moscow Polytech.
As Daria noted, “When we realize the way the world works - we create technologies”.
It is thanks to the existence of LHC, in operation of which more than 12 000 scientists fr om different countries of the world are involved, the opportunity emerged to create new technologies. These include the Internet, and the most expensive substance in the world - anti-matter, the substance which is opposite to the matter, that exists in very small numbers in the universe, and which may be obtained only at LHC.
The Collider , built in 2008 over the territory of France and Switzerland in pursue of search of elementary particle – the Higgs boson- and research of the dark matter, represents itself the underground ring having the circumference of the circle being 26,7 км, which allows accelerating and colliding of particles. Discovery of the Higgs boson dated of 2012, as the result of the atom fragmentation at LHC, confirmed the standard model of physics (modern theory of the structure and interaction of elementary particles) and complemented the formula of our universe.
How does it work? Physicists learned to explore what lies inside the atom. In chemistry, the Mendeleev’s Periodic table exists, representing all chemical elements that substances consist of. In physics, there also exists a certain list, analogous to that table, containing the data about the particles that the atom consists of. Finding these particles is feasible only having achieved a collision of the atoms accelerated at high speed. This collision leads to their splitting and crushing. The Higgs boson is exactly what happens under crushing of the atom.
The scientists keep on deeper exploring the world in search for new physics, from dark matter and anti-matter up to exploration of space. Daria is leading one of the 20 projects at LHC – the LYCb Project, investigating the universe symmetry breaking, a kind of paradox, under which there is more matter in the universe than antimatter. She notes that despite the fact that “fundamental science does not bring direct benefit, it is necessary for understanding of our Universe structure”, and “fundamental research may lead to creation of new technologies, that may benefit society”.
Daria continues traditions of Russian scientists, who have been working at LHC since its foundation. With pride, she recalls how at one of the detectors, located at the Collider mine panel, she saw the tag “Izhevsk Plant 1986”. In addition, there are many such tags there. She notices, “Many technologies are made in Russia or with involvement of Russian scientists”.
CERN continues working with Russian scientists and supports Russian projects. Selection of projects is determined based on to which extend they are fundamental and interesting. For example, the theme of Daria – development of new detectors – is actual as per today and in the future. “We develop the parts of detectors for the future Collider, realizing, that the existing detectors will not be able to work in the future”, shared Daria and added, «CERN has the plan up to the Year 2025 at minimum”. The materials we currently use will not be suitable after the Year 2030, as they will not be able to withstand high degree of radiation; therefore, we need new materials. Moreover, not just the materials themselves, but changed properties of the detectors”.
Daria Strekalina and her team are engaged in development of detectors at the laboratory of Moscow Polytech, wh ere new features of detectors are being created, those that will allow developing new physics. “We invent projects at our laboratory, build prototypes, and bring them to Switzerland, test them directly on the accelerator”. “We make conclusions whether it is good or bad, and modernize something”, continued Daria, whose team is at the stage of searching for the prototype, which in the future may be scaled up to a detector. The new technology is expected to be actively used on a new collider already in the Year 2030.
Daria as well dispelled myths about the collider, which “are growing because of ignorance and lack of knowledge”. She noted that radiation might be a hypothetical threat from the collider, the probability of which is practically a zero one, due to a multi-layer protection system. Moreover, the probability of creation of black holes as the result of acceleration and colliding of particles is the same as “in the process of breaking eggs into a frying pan”.
Would you like to join the team of Daria Strekalina and be engaged in research that will change the future? This is possible! Daria is a potential research supervisor of the International Olympiad of the Association “Global Universities “ (Open Doors) under the track of postgraduate studies. For more information about free education under the leadership of Daria, please refer to the Open Doors olympiad website of Moscow Polytech. Learn more about research interests of the scientist and the topics proposed to future graduate students from her research profile (portfolio).
For reference:
Peter Higgs – is a British theoretical physicist and is an Honorary Professor of University of Edinburgh. In 2013, he became a Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his prediction in the Year 1964 the existence of an elementary particle – boson, which was named after him. In modern theory of elementary particles the Higgs boson - is an indivisible particle that is responsible for the mechanism of the appearance of masses in some other elementary particles.
CERN started implementation of the new project of creation of Future Circular Collider (FCC) with circumference of 100 km and the beam energy of up to 175 GeV. Commissioning of the new collider is expected not earlier than 2040. LHC will become for FCC the auxiliary circle, providing the preliminary acceleration of particles. Currently the work is underway on the Feasibility Study of the Project with tentative cost estimate of the project being €21 billion (according to the 2019 assessment), which will exceed the cost of building LHC by more than four times.
