The University of Southampton will play a major role in upgrading the Large Hadron Collider.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator and was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).

Inside the accelerator, two high-energy particle beams travel at close to the speed of light before they are made to collide.

The collider will be upgraded as announced by the Science and Technologies Facilities Council.

Experts from the University’s School of Engineering will develop the technology required to cold power the superconducting magnets that guide high-energy particle beams around the 27 Kilometre tunnel.

Yifeng Yang, Professor of Cryogenics and Applied Superconductivity at the University of Southampton said: "Since the inception of the LHC, University of Southampton has been a long-term partner of CERN in developing innovative approaches for the cold powering of superconducting magnets.

"For the LHC upgrade, we have carried out initial proof of concept tests of the new superconducting cables and devised the baseline strategy for cooling and controlling them."