Protons set to collide at 13 TeV to prepare for physics

20 mei 2015

Over the next 24 hours, beams of protons should collide in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the record-breaking energy of 13 teraelectronvolts (TeV) for the first time. This is one of the many steps required to prepare the machine before the LHC’s second physics run can begin. The LHC Operations team plans to declare "stable beams" in the coming weeks – the signal for the LHC experiments to start taking physics data at this new energy frontier.

Last month proton beams were back in the accelerator for the first time after two years of intense maintenance and consolidation. The first beam at the record energy of 6.5 TeV circulated on 10 April, and the first collisions – at the lower beam energy of 450 gigaelectronvolts (GeV) – followed.

This weeks collisions will be used to further fine-tune the LHC, but no physics data will be taken at this point. The collisions at 13 TeV are to check that CERN’s flagship – the LHC – is sea-worthy. But we haven’t yet begun the voyage to new frontiers.

Lees het volledig bericht op de CERN website.

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