First beam in the LHC since last year!
As reported by the BBC, last weekend particles were injected into the LHC for the first time in over a year. This confirms what we’ve known all along — the scientists, engineers, and technicians working on the LHC are making steady progress toward restarting the machine — and it’s an excitingly concrete reminder of how close we are to taking data!
Last year’s big startup event was focused on circulating a beam around the entire ring, which hasn’t happened again yet. This year’s really exciting milestone will be when beams are not only circulating in both directions, but actually colliding: that’s when we can start to do physics.
Let’s hope that the ‘exiting milestone’ remains a humorous typo!
Hi Saibot. Heh, yes, good point. I hope you’ll forgive me for fixing it in the entry.
The latest, plan presented by Steve Meyers at the CERN Machine Advisory Committee – 1st Meeting, is somewhat cautious, but expects first high energy collisions just before christmas (Slide 98ff).
Hi Seth,
Peter Woit and the NY times know more … It’s not going well – as always – 2 x 1.1 TeV will do for christmas, Sigh!
Do you have an idea where there info comes from ?
Hi Lac. The 1.1 TeV collisions as the last item before Christmas are in a schedule somewhere, I don’t think they’re a secret. I’ve been meaning to write about that aspect of the current plan, but for the moment let me just say this: in my view, the end of the calendar year is a rather artificial deadline. I absolutely disagree with the inference that things are “not going well” because they’re taking a(nother) little bit longer than we hoped.
Well, Rolf Heuer stated today that he would like that christmas present too
Anyway, it looks like they take really good care not to blow up the thing again. An unexpected quench is a really spectacular experience. Once I saw snow falling in the midst of summer over a helium ‘exhaust’.