Re-started collider smashes previous record

The "Big Bang" machine with which scientists hope to re-create conditions at the dawn of the universe smashed the world record for accelerating subatomic particles yesterday.

Two beams of protons, one of the building blocks of atoms, were spun round the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) early yesterday at an energy of 1.18 teraelectronvolts (TeV).

The electron volt is a unit of energy used in particle physics. One TeV is equivalent to a million million electron volts.

The previous world record for particle acceleration was 0.98 TeV held by the Tevatron Collider in the US since 2001.

Scientists re-started the LHC 10 days ago after its much publicised initial launch in September 2008 was followed by a disappointing shut-down. A serious fault which damaged a number of superconducting magnets resulted in months of repairs.

The giant machine is housed underground in a circular tunnel spanning 27 kilometres between the French and Swiss borders near Geneva.

It was built to re-create conditions moments after the Big Bang that created the universe around 14 billion years ago.

A key aim is to find evidence of the Higgs boson - a hypothetical particle that could explain why solid objects have mass, one of the biggest unresolved riddles in physics.

Next year scientists hope to attain colossal energy levels of up to 7TeV with the LHC, taking particle physicals into unknown territory.