Review of the Safety of LHC Collisions

Understand

The safety of collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was studied in 2003 by the LHC Safety Study Group, who concluded that they presented no danger.

• Here we review their 2003 analysis in light of additional experimental results and theoretical understanding, which enable us to confirm, update and extend the conclusions of the LHC Safety Study Group.
• The LHC reproduces in the laboratory, under controlled conditions, collisions at centre-of-mass energies less than those reached in the atmosphere by some of the cosmic rays that have been bombarding the Earth for billions of years.
• We recall the rates for the collisions of cosmic rays with the Earth, Sun, neutron stars, white dwarfs and other astronomical bodies at energies higher than the LHC.