The next generation of cutting-edge accelerator magnets is no longer just an idea. Recent tests revealed that the United States and CERN have successfully co-created a prototype superconducting accelerator magnet that is much more powerful than those currently inside the Large Hadron Collider. Engineers will incorporate more than 20 magnets similar to this model into the next iteration of the LHC, which will take the stage in 2026 and increase the LHC’s luminosity by a factor of ten. That translates into a ten-fold increase in the data rate.
“Building this magnet prototype was truly an international effort,” says Lucio Rossi, the head of the High-Luminosity (HighLumi) LHC project at CERN. “Half the magnetic coils inside the prototype were produced at CERN, and half at laboratories in the United States.”
During the original construction of the Large Hadron Collider, US Department of Energy national laboratories foresaw the future need for stronger LHC magnets and created the LHC Accelerator Research Program (LARP): an R&D program committed to developing new accelerator technology for future LHC upgrades.
This 1.5-meter-long model, which is a fully functioning accelerator magnet, was developed by scientists and engineers at Fermilab, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and CERN. The magnet recently underwent an intense testing program at Fermilab, which it passed in March with flying colors. It will now undergo a rigorous series of endurance and stress tests to simulate the arduous conditions inside a particle accelerator.