Canada invests $12M to participate in CERN research

The federal government is providing $10 million to build new specialized equipment at the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland. An additional $2 million of in-kind assistance from Vancouver-based TRIUMF will allow Canada to participate in a global effort to upgrade the LHC to be able to discover new physics. The expertise of the Canadian scientists will be crucial in building five superconducting “crab cavity” cryomodules, which are components to build “super deep freezers.” Inside these freezers, scientists can manipulate particles to significantly increase the number of collisions, or luminosity, of the LHC. But this only works effectively with crab cavities in a “highly regulated, constant ultra-low temperature environment,” and Canadian scientists are leaders in cryomodule technology.