I am on shift in the ATLAS control room, for the liquid argon calorimeter. Taking bets on number of people who will be here around 9:30… I’ve got 150.
All times Geneva, Switzerland time (east coast USA +6 hours):
06:45 I’m here for the start of the shift. Things are pretty quiet, although a lot more people than usual (50?). Our calorimeter had some cooling problems the last few days, but the overnight crew got everything up and ready to go. We are ready for the beam.
07:00 Number of people is increasing steadily…no more chairs. There is a place for the TV crews to set up just to my right. I saw a sky news van outside on my way in. LHC is front page on bbc web site, also Le Monde.
07:54 Pretty quiet here. Camera setting up beside me. ATLAS has started taking data (just to be ready, nothing to detect yet).
08:31 Someone is broadcasting live here (Sky News?).
08:32 LHC status web page shows a cryo problem in sector 7-8, but I asked and was told it is a minor problem. Don’t know if this will delay the beam going around (and to ATLAS) for a little bit.
09:10 The program should have started by now. Unfortunately can’t watch anything of the speeches from here. The accelerator cryo status looks to be improving on the web, so I think we are looking good for beam, maybe a little late. I hear BBC radio is here. There is some effort to kick people out of the control room, not too many people right now.
09:28 LHC cryo status is all green.
09:35 Beam in the LHC. Only the first sector. They will bring it around further each time. ATLAS is the last to get beam.
09:48 Beam is up to CMS.
09:59 Beam is past CMS, sector 6 (out of 8).
10:00 We should be around 100 people here by my count. Lots of excitement! Lots of pictures being taken.
10:15 Beam at point 8! It is coming to ATLAS soon!
10:20 Beam through ATLAS! They did it! Big applause here as we see energy in the detector!
