Thursday, January 20 2005 16:19 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: India has bagged contracts to supply sub-systems, worth $ 40 million - $ 45 million, for building the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collidor (LHC) near the Swiss and French border, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar said today (Jan 20, 2005).

He told reporters under an agreement with the Department of Atomic Energy and CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research), Centre for Advanced Technology (CAT)-Indore, an R & D Centre of DAE, has been entrusted with the task of developing a number of sub-systems for the LHC.

A few Indian industries, including Avasarala Automation Limited in Bangalore, have bagged manufacturing contracts from CAT.

According to a scientist at Geneva-based CERN, LHC is 27-km long and has more than 1,200 super-conducting magnets around its perimeter, which bend and guide two 7 TeV proton beams in opposing direction.

"LHC will probe deeper into matter than ever before," Alain Poncet said.

"LHC is meant to investigate the fundamental aspects of matter ranging from galaxies to stars and earth to trees and everything around us," the scientist said.