What Damage Could Supercollider Suspect Do?

When a physicist is suspected of working with terrorists, thoughts turn to radioactive "dirty bombs" or small nuclear devices -- and global alarm bells go off. But when the suspect works at the world's largest particle accelerator, the world can breathe a half-sigh of relief.

A technician walks under the core magnet of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment at the...

A technician walks under the core magnet of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN (Centre Europeen de Recherche Nucleaire) in the French village of Cessy, near Geneva March 22, 2007. CMS is part of five experiments which, from the end of 2007 on, will study what happens when beams of particles collide in the 27 km (16.8 miles) long underground ring LHC (Large Hadron Collider). French police have arrested a nuclear physicist on suspicion that he had links to terrorist organizations in Algeria, the European Organization for Nuclear Research said Friday.

(Denis Balibouse/Reuters)

Adlène Hicheur was reportedly a French-Algerian researcher who worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). He was part of a large group running experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). On Monday, he stood before a French judge in Paris, accused of collaborating with an al Qaeda spinoff group in North Africa.

CERN is not the kind of laboratory that represents a terrorist's candy store, researchers say.

"There's nothing you can get at the LHC that can do any damage to anybody, except a hammer," quips Sheldon Stone, a physicist at Syracuse University in New York and member of the team running an experiment called "LHC Beauty." Mr. Hicheur worked for this experiment as a data analyst.

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While the lab does use some radioactive material, the sources are common to hospitals and industry, according to a statement the lab issued after Hicheur was arrested. The lab is not involved with nuclear-energy research or nuclear weapons -- activities that would be more likely to require, or produce as byproducts, highly radioactive materials.

According to officials at CERN, Hicheur hadn't been around the lab for months. The facility has been shut down since September 2008, after two magnets, which were designed to keep proton beams focused, overheated and melted.

Authorities reportedly picked up Hicheur in southeastern France on Oct. 8, along with his brother.

Hicheur is suspected of discussing with the Al Qaeda spinoff potential targets in Europe to attack. French officials reportedly have said that they had no evidence CERN was among the targets.

The collaboration that Hicheur participated in includes 650 scientists from 13 countries.

The LHC is designed to accelerate two beams of protons in opposite directions, then steer them into head-on collisions to mimic on a tiny scale conditions thought to exist in the briefest instant after the Big Bang. Physicists and cosmologists hold that this cosmic explosion formed the universe.