Malta participates in one of world's largest scientific projects

Nicholas J. Sammut has just completed his Ph.D. research in engineering, the results of which will be used as an integral part of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest and most powerful scientific instrument ever constructed.

The project is based at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. Thanks to an international model for co-operation which preceded the European Union itself, CERN's role for the past 52 years was to use the language of science to create powerful ties between European countries which fought each other in World War II.

Over the years the organisation grew and now brings together around 6,500 scientific specialists from over 80 nations and 500 institutions worldwide to work on non-military fundamental science.

It houses the largest particle physics facility in the world with the aim of understanding better the composition of matter that makes up the universe and all living organisms. This cutting edge technology has profound implications for physics, engineering, computing and medicine ranging from the infinitely small (nanotechnology) to the infinitely huge (astrophysics).

The most publicly known application originating from CERN is the World Wide Web (WWW), which was invented in 1990 to facilitate communication between scientists in different countries. The Internet has not only changed the face of communication and commerce worldwide but has also altered our daily life.

CERN is now developing the second generation WWW known as the Grid. Besides the transfer of data, as is the case with the WWW, the Grid will also enable the transfer of processing power. Its global effect cannot yet be quantified.

Other important technologies that emerged from the research performed at CERN include new techniques in cancer therapy as well as medical imaging such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) which have revolutionised medical diagnosis and treatment world-wide.

To perform its research, CERN has a 63-km infrastructure of particle accelerators and detectors. These immense machines are like massive microscopes and are capable of revealing the composition of matter itself by colliding particles with an energy that brings us closer to the conditions at the creation of the universe.

CERN's flagship project, the LHC, is currently under construction and measures 27 km in circumference (its diameter is equivalent to the distance between Mdina and Valletta). It is situated in a tunnel 100 m underground underlying four towns in France and Switzerland. This scientific colossus, which started in 1982, will be switched on in 2007. It is not only a scientific and political challenge but a financial one too with its price tag running into billions of euros.

Two counter-rotating particle beams travel inside a vacuum around the LHC about 11,000 times in one second approaching the speed of light. They then collide in four massive detectors which are designed to cross new frontiers of the microcosm; study the imbalance between matter and antimatter and perhaps find evidence of multiple dimensions. The heaviest detector weighs 12,500 tons, almost twice as heavy as the Eiffel tower.

The machine is made up of 1,200 superconducting magnets which are 15 m long, weigh 30 tons each and which bend the particle beams along their circular trajectory. Being superconducting, these magnets are cooled to -271°C and can transport an incredibly large amount of electricity (12,000 A) without resistance or energy loss.

Being such a large project, the LHC, needs to be controlled at a high speed and with an unprecedented precision. Dr Sammut's involvement in the project consisted of the development of a mathematical model based on a large sample of complex measurements that enables the LHC to reach these demanding requirements. Without this contribution, the performance of the LHC may be seriously jeopardised. Dr Sammut also developed a data acquisition system for an instrument that was used to perform critical precision measurements at a high speed.

Dr Sammut's research resulted in 12 international publications and was carried out as a collaboration project between the Department of Electrical Systems in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Malta and the Accelerator Technology Division at CERN under the supervision of Professor Ing. Joseph Micallef (UoM) and Dr Luca Bottura (CERN).

Dr Sammut, who is 25, will now be pursuing further research on other aspects of the LHC. He is the son of Dr Michael Sammut and Monica Sammut of L-Iklin, formerly of Sliema.