LHC status report

Following the great success of the first 3.5 TeV collisions in all four LHC experiments on 30 March, the focus of the LHC commissioning teams has turned to consolidating the beam injection and acceleration procedures.

 

During the last two weeks, the operators have adopted a cycle of beam commissioning studies by day and the preparation and delivery of collisions during the night shifts.

The injection and acceleration processes for the beams are by now well established and almost all feedback systems, which are an essential ingredient for establishing reliable and safe machine operation, have been commissioned. Thanks to special current settings for the quadrupoles that are situated near the collision points, the LHC luminosity at high energy has been increased by a factor of 5 in three of the four experiments. Similar improvements are under way for the fourth experiment.

The next steps include adjustments of the LHC machine protection and collimation devices, which will ensure 'stable beam' conditions that should allow the experiments to turn on all their inner detector components. Once these results are achieved, the LHC commissioning teams will aim at increasing the beam intensities.

by CERN Bulletin