Just like Hall’s aluminum extraction process made aluminium cheaper than silver in a matter of months, similarly this process will make gold cheaper in a matter of years if the scientists are not forced to shut up by the gold industry lobby
Scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have successfully transformed lead atoms into gold atoms. Well, first lab diamonds came into the market and now you will have lab gold. That means, the monetary value of those tonnes of gold you saved up in your bank lockers all those years forgoing vacations, cinema tickets and restaurant dinners will equal zero in the next 25 years. Another example of innovation in technology creating a new paradigm.
CERN scientists have achieved a modern-day alchemy feat by momentarily transforming lead into gold during high-energy collisions within the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This breakthrough, achieved by the ALICE experiment, involved using ultra-peripheral collisions where lead ions passed close enough to each other to generate powerful electromagnetic fields. These fields released photons that, in turn, caused some lead atoms to lose three protons and two neutrons, transforming them into gold-203. While a vast number of gold atoms were created (86 billion between 2015-2018), the total mass was a minuscule 29 picograms, or less than a trillionth of a gram.
The Process:
The LHC accelerates lead ions to near the speed of light. Instead of direct collisions, these ions pass close enough to each other to create strong electromagnetic fields.
Photon Emission:
These electromagnetic fields release photons, which can interact with the lead nuclei.
Nuclear Transformation:
In some cases, these photon interactions cause a lead nucleus to eject three protons and two neutrons, resulting in a gold nucleus.
Fleeting Gold:
The gold atoms produced in this way are highly unstable and quickly decay back into other particles.
Scientific Significance:
While not a practical source of gold, this experiment demonstrates the power of high-energy physics and our ability to manipulate matter at the nuclear level. It also provides insights into the behavior of matter under extreme conditions.
In a paper published in Physical Review Journals, the ALICE collaboration reports measurements that quantify the transmutation of lead into gold in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Transforming the base metal lead into the precious metal gold was a dream of medieval alchemists. This long-standing quest, known as chrysopoeia, may have been motivated by the observation that dull grey, relatively abundant lead is of a similar density to gold, which has long been coveted for its beautiful colour and rarity. It was only much later that it became clear that lead and gold are distinct chemical elements and that chemical methods are powerless to transmute one into the other.
With the dawn of nuclear physics in the 20th century, it was discovered that heavy elements could transform into others, either naturally, by radioactive decay, or in the laboratory, under a bombardment of neutrons or protons. Though gold has been artificially produced in this way before, the ALICE collaboration has now measured the transmutation of lead into gold by a new mechanism involving near-miss collisions between lead nuclei at the LHC.
Extremely high-energy collisions between lead nuclei at the LHC can create quark–gluon plasma, a hot and dense state of matter that is thought to have filled the universe around a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, giving rise to the matter we now know. However, in the far more frequent interactions where the nuclei just miss each other without “touching”, the intense electromagnetic fields surrounding them can induce photon–photon and photon–nucleus interactions that open further avenues of exploration.
The electromagnetic field emanating from a lead nucleus is particularly strong because the nucleus contains 82 protons, each carrying one elementary charge. Moreover, the very high speed at which lead nuclei travel in the LHC (corresponding to 99.999993% of the speed of light) causes the electromagnetic field lines to be squashed into a thin pancake, transverse to the direction of motion, producing a short-lived pulse of photons. Often, this triggers a process called electromagnetic dissociation, whereby a photon interacting with a nucleus can excite oscillations of its internal structure, resulting in the ejection of small numbers of neutrons and protons. To create gold (a nucleus containing 79 protons), three protons must be removed from a lead nucleus in the LHC beams.
“It is impressive to see that our detectors can handle head-on collisions producing thousands of particles, while also being sensitive to collisions where only a few particles are produced at a time, enabling the study of electromagnetic ‘nuclear transmutation’ processes,” says Marco Van Leeuwen, ALICE spokesperson.
The ALICE team used the detector’s zero degree calorimeters (ZDC) to count the number of photon–nucleus interactions that resulted in the emission of zero, one, two and three protons accompanied by at least one neutron, which are associated with the production of lead, thallium, mercury and gold, respectively. While less frequent than the creation of thallium or mercury, the results show that the LHC currently produces gold at a maximum rate of about 89 000 nuclei per second from lead–lead collisions at the ALICE collision point. Gold nuclei emerge from the collision with very high energy and hit the LHC beam pipe or collimators at various points downstream, where they immediately fragment into single protons, neutrons and other particles. The gold exists for just a tiny fraction of a second.
The ALICE analysis shows that, during Run 2 of the LHC (2015–2018), about 86 billion gold nuclei were created at the four major experiments. In terms of mass, this corresponds to just 29 picograms (2.9 ×10-11 g). Since the luminosity in the LHC is continually increasing thanks to regular upgrades to the machines, Run 3 has produced almost double the amount of gold that Run 2 did, but the total still amounts to trillions of times less than would be required to make a piece of jewellery. While the dream of medieval alchemists has technically come true, their hopes of riches have once again been dashed.
“Thanks to the unique capabilities of the ALICE ZDCs, the present analysis is the first to systematically detect and analyse the signature of gold production at the LHC experimentally,” says Uliana Dmitrieva of the ALICE collaboration.
“The results also test and improve theoretical models of electromagnetic dissociation which, beyond their intrinsic physics interest, are used to understand and predict beam losses that are a major limit on the performance of the LHC and future colliders,” adds John Jowett, also of the ALICE collaboration.
