Tweet
10 January 2011
Last updated at 15:19 ET
By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News
The hunt for the elusive Higgs boson particle - crucial to current theories of physics - looks set to become a one horse race.
A US "particle smasher" which has been searching for the Higgs has been denied an extension that would have kept it running until 2014.
The Tevatron accelerator will now end operations in 2011 as planned.
After that, the European Large Hadron Collider (LHC) machine will have a clear run at discovering the particle.
In October last year, an expert panel recommended extending the Tevatron's lifetime by three years, allowing physicists to continue using the accelerator in their hunt for the Higgs.
The Tevatron facility is operated by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) which is in turn run by the US Department of Energy (DOE).
But Fermilab employees have now been told that a difficult US budget situation means the panel's recommendation will not be followed, and the particle smasher will be closed this year.
The Higgs boson is of huge importance to the widely accepted theory of physics, known as the Standard Model.
It is the sub-atomic particle which explains why all other particles have mass. However, despite decades trying, no-one, so far, has detected it.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), based underground on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, is the only other competitor in the race to find the Higgs.
In 2010, physicists at Fermilab said they were closing in on the elusive Higgs.
The Tevatron and the LHC alone are powerful enough to probe energy ranges where the Higgs may reside.
Some physicists have previously said that the LHC may not be in a position to detect the Higgs for two to three years.
Extending the Tevatron's lifetime beyond 2011 would have been a game-changer, giving the US lab a potential advantage in the race to make a discovery.
Cern, the organisation which runs the LHC, has for some time been planning to shut down the machine at the end of 2011 for up to one year.
But recently, officials had been considering whether to delay this scheduled closure - for maintenance work - until the end of 2012, giving the LHC more time to hunt for the elusive particle.
Fermilab would have needed an extra $35m per year to operate the Tevatron into 2014.
Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
Webmaster Forum | SEO Forum | Coding Forum | Graphics Forum</b>
A US "particle smasher" which has been searching for the Higgs has been denied an extension that would have kept it running until 2014.
The Tevatron accelerator will now end operations in 2011 as planned.
After that, the European Large Hadron Collider (LHC) machine will have a clear run at discovering the particle.
In October last year, an expert panel recommended extending the Tevatron's lifetime by three years, allowing physicists to continue using the accelerator in their hunt for the Higgs.
The Tevatron facility is operated by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) which is in turn run by the US Department of Energy (DOE).
But Fermilab employees have now been told that a difficult US budget situation means the panel's recommendation will not be followed, and the particle smasher will be closed this year.
The Higgs boson is of huge importance to the widely accepted theory of physics, known as the Standard Model.
It is the sub-atomic particle which explains why all other particles have mass. However, despite decades trying, no-one, so far, has detected it.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), based underground on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, is the only other competitor in the race to find the Higgs.
In 2010, physicists at Fermilab said they were closing in on the elusive Higgs.
The Tevatron and the LHC alone are powerful enough to probe energy ranges where the Higgs may reside.
Some physicists have previously said that the LHC may not be in a position to detect the Higgs for two to three years.
Extending the Tevatron's lifetime beyond 2011 would have been a game-changer, giving the US lab a potential advantage in the race to make a discovery.
Cern, the organisation which runs the LHC, has for some time been planning to shut down the machine at the end of 2011 for up to one year.
But recently, officials had been considering whether to delay this scheduled closure - for maintenance work - until the end of 2012, giving the LHC more time to hunt for the elusive particle.
Fermilab would have needed an extra $35m per year to operate the Tevatron into 2014.
Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
Webmaster Forum | SEO Forum | Coding Forum | Graphics Forum</b>