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Re:Quench of LHC inner triplet magnet causes a small leak wi... by dukwon on Friday July 21, 2023 @07:28AM (#36812554)
"at least several weeks" is technically correct but I think a bit of an understatement. A sector takes about 3-4 weeks to warm up and 4-5 weeks to cool down.

Since the winter shutdown is scheduled for end of October (thanks to the energy crisis), there's a good chance we are finished with proton collisions for the year. If the leak can get fixed and the sector cooled down by mid/late September, we might have time for the heavy ion run. Last year's ion run was cancelled due to shortening the year, so 2 years in a row would not be great.

Re:Quench of LHC inner triplet magnet causes a small leak wi... by foobarian on Friday July 21, 2023 @11:37AM (#36815058)
Is there any plan to migrate to higher temperature superconductors which might not require such low temperatures?
Re:Quench of LHC inner triplet magnet causes a small leak wi... by scarmig on Friday July 21, 2023 @11:53AM (#36815309)
They introduce their own problems. They're typically brittle ceramics, making them hard to work with. They're more expensive to manufacture. And they have a lower critical current density (i.e. there's less current they can carry before losing superconductivity).
Re:Quench of LHC inner triplet magnet causes a small leak wi... by sbierwagen on Friday July 21, 2023 @11:17PM (#36822850)
The Future Circular Collider is looking to switch to niobium-tin from LHC's niobium titanium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Circular_Collider Unfortunately they'll still run at liquid helium temperatures-- while advanced superconductors have higher critical temperatures, the critical field (magnet strength) still goes higher as the magnet gets colder, and that's the figure of merit for collider designers. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Solids/scbc.html

This is why you see new fusion reactor designs like the SPARC which use HTS superconductors throughout still use mildly exotic cryocoolants like liquid hydrogen-- not as expensive as liquid helium, but still better performing than liquid nitrogen. (Not to mention that liquid nitrogen is annoying in nuclear applications: it's easily activated by neutron radiation and deposits monoatomic carbon dust through your cryocooler circuit)