CERN announces new 2009 restart schedule for LHC

By William Atkins
Tuesday, 10 February 2009 03:21

Science - Energy

Management at CERN on Monday, February 9, 2009 announced a new restart schedule for its Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Its technical specialists, as a group, reached the conclusion that the restart schedule is “tight but realistic" for 2009.


According to the 2.9.2009 press release from CERN entitled “CERN management confirms new LHC restart schedule,” the new schedule is six-weeks later than the previous one in order to accommodate such items as the “… implementation of a new enhanced protection system for the busbar and magnet splices; installation of new pressure-relief valves to reduce the collateral damage in case of a repeat incident; application of more stringent safety constraints; and scheduling constraints associated with helium transfer and storage.”

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the largest particle accelerator. It is also the highest-energy particle accelerator, intending to collide opposing particle beams such as protons at an energy of 7 teraelectron volts (TeV)/particle and lead nuclei at 574 TeV per particle.

According to scientists, 1 teraelectron volt (or 1012 electron volts) equals 1.60217646 × 10-7 joules (J).

By definition, 1 eV equals 1.60217653(14)×10−19 joules (J), or one volt (V, 1 joule divided by 1 coulomb) multiplied by the electron charge (eV, 1.60217653(14) x 10-19 coulomb).

The new CERN schedule includes:

1.    First LHC beams beginning at the end of September 2009,
2.    First LHC collisions starting late October 2009,
3.    A short technical stop over the Christmas holiday period, and
4.    The LHC running through into autumn of 2010

This four-step process has been developed to ensure that “the experiments have adequate data to carry out their first new physics analyses and have results to announce in 2010.”

Page two includes comments from CERN's director general, along with what the CERN experts say about the new schedule.