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Question about LHC

INRM

Philosopher
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Jul 24, 2002
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I know the amount of radiation we get hit with from cosmic rays and such are in excess of what the LHC will generate even at full power. My question is did they factor the effect of the energy of the combination of the energies produced by the LHC *AND* the cosmic rays that hit us too?
 
If you stand down in the tunnels of the LHC when it is on, you will receive alot more radiation than what you would receive from cosmic rays. If fact, parts of the LHC and the experiments will remain quite "hot" even when the beam is turned off.

From a safety point of view, radiation dosages from these kind of endeavors are estimated, monitored, and measured. Personnel and the general population are never put at risk.
 
The LHC is some way underground - cosmic rays won't hit it and it'd be a vanishingly small chance even if it weren't shielded that a cosmic ray happened to hit the tiny cross section the collision would present anyway, I'd have thought.

And *then*, even if you did have an LHC event combined with a cosmic ray you'd be talking something like doubling the energy, and cosmic rays have a much wider range of energies than that. It still wouldn't be significant to any arguments about LHC safety.
 
Muons make it down there. Quite a few of them, too. I can't give you the exact rates, but muons are being used to check the calibration and alignment of the spectrometers in the ATLAS experiment.
 
kalen said:
Muons make it down there. Quite a few of them, too. I can't give you the exact rates, but muons are being used to check the calibration and alignment of the spectrometers in the ATLAS experiment.
Click to expand...

Well muons are products of cosmic rays. If they're detected, it's because a cosmic ray hasn't made it there ;-) But that's a good point, I'd not considered the products of cosmic rays. Still, the argument about cross section and energies involved would be the same - well, stronger actually.
 
kalen,

Good point, will we get hit with a gamma ray burst when this happens?
 
INRM said:
I know the amount of radiation we get hit with from cosmic rays and such are in excess of what the LHC will generate even at full power. My question is did they factor the effect of the energy of the combination of the energies produced by the LHC *AND* the cosmic rays that hit us too?
Click to expand...

Were you asking about people working at the LHC or about the average person living elsewhere in the world? I'd guess the latter from your question but it seems others have been addressing the former. Just in case you were asking about a person in Amsterdam or New York, the amount of radiation that a person not actually at the LHC site would receive from its operation is essentially zero, far far less than what you would receive from any other source.

I'm sure that one of the people who work at the LHC could confirm or deny this bit, but I suspect that on the surface near the LHC you would receive a negligible amount of additional radiation from its operation, the amount would fall rapidly as the distance increased (though not necessarily as the square of the distance, as spherical emitters do.)
 
@INRM

Betelgeuse going supernova will produce some x-rays and gamma rays but not a proper "gamma ray burst".
 
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Well, assuming I'm doing the math right, the Oh my god particles have something like 3 x10^^20 electron volts. If one were to somehow align perfectly with a particle wizzing around at 7 trillion electron volts and they smack together in such a way as to send one off with 100% of both's energy, you'd basically just add 0.000002.% to it's energy.

So I wouldn't worry about it.
 
radiation is no problem, its geting sucked up by the blackhole


:D
 
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