The closure of Europe's Large Hadron Collider has been pushed back a year because the machine is running so well and giving scientific results, researchers say.
Scientists at the CERN research facility on the French-Swiss border had intended to shut down the particle accelerator at the end of 2011 for a major refit, but have decided to leave the $8 billion machine in operation until the end of 2012, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported Monday.
Scientists will use the extra year to carry out physics experiments while the machine is running at half power, before it is shut down for 15 months to prepare it to run at full power, the newspaper said.
For 2011 the collider will operate at 3.5 trillion electron volts; it is designed to be run at a maximum 7 trillion electron volts.
"If LHC continues to improve in 2011 as it did in 2010, we've got a very exciting year ahead of us," Steve Myers, CERN's Director for Accelerators and Technology, said.
Even at the reduced level, the collider, based in Geneva, is running at more than three times the previous record for a particle accelerator.
"With the LHC running so well in 2010, and further improvements in performance expected, there's a real chance that exciting new physics may be within our sights by the end of the year," Sergio Bertolucci, CERN's Research Director, said.
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