A hole in the LHC's vacuum bubble safety argument

[LSR]

A hole in the LHC's vacuum bubble safety argument

One of the four specific risks considered in the most recent official safety review for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the possibility that LHC collisions could trigger a transition to a lower-energy vacuum state. The current review by the LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG) asserts that this risk was ruled out in the earlier report of the LHC Safety Study Group (LSSG). The conclusion of the LSAG's report states:

In the case of phenomena, such as vacuum bubble formation via phase transitions or the production of magnetic monopoles, which had already been excluded by the previous report [1], no subsequent development has put these firm conclusions into question.

It should be noted, however, that the LSSG's report considers only the three specific risks of strangelets, black holes, and magnetic monopoles. The LSSG's report includes no mention whatsoever of the possibility of vacuum bubble formation and includes no data relevant to the vacuum bubble safety argument briefly outlined in the LSAG's report.

See the original text at:
http://www.lhcsafetyreview.org/docs/lhc ... safety.pdf

[chelle]

Hi,

Check this Wiki-page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_of_ ... n_Collider

... and the stuff regarding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum

Before the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider started operation, critics postulated that the extremely high energy could produce catastrophic scenarios,[20] such as creating a black hole, a transition into a different quantum mechanical vacuum (see false vacuum), or the creation of strange matter that is more stable than ordinary matter. These hypotheses are complex, but many predict that the Earth would be destroyed in a time frame from seconds to millennia, depending on the theory considered. However, the fact that objects of the Solar System (e.g., the Moon) have been bombarded with cosmic particles of significantly higher energies than that of RHIC and other man made colliders for billions of years, without any harm to the Solar System, were among the most striking arguments that these hypotheses were unfounded.[21]

The only solid argument against imo is the density en frequency difference at the LHC vs. nature, but that's a different story,

cheers,

m.