Date for your diary: End of the world, September 10 ;)

[Severian]

I thought you might like to know.....

 

Subject: PRESS RELEASE : CERN announces start-up date for LHC

 

PR06.08 - 07.08.2008

 

CERN announces start-up date for LHC

 

Geneva, 7 August 2008. CERN* has today announced that the first

attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will

be made on 10 September. This news comes as the cool down phase of

commissioning CERN’s new particle accelerator reaches a successful

conclusion. Television coverage of the start-up will be made

available through Eurovision.

 

The LHC is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, producing

beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and

around 30 times more intense when it reaches design performance,

probably by 2010. Housed in a 27-kilometre tunnel, it relies on

technologies that would not have been possible 30 years ago. The LHC

is, in a sense, its own prototype.

 

Starting up such a machine is not as simple as flipping a switch.

Commissioning is a long process that starts with the cooling down of

each of the machine’s eight sectors. This is followed by the

electrical testing of the 1600 superconducting magnets and their

individual powering to nominal operating current. These steps are

followed by the powering together of all the circuits of each sector,

and then of the eight independent sectors in unison in order to

operate as a single machine.

 

By the end of July, this work was approaching completion, with all

eight sectors at their operating temperature of 1.9 degrees above

absolute zero (-271°C). The next phase in the process is

synchronization of the LHC with the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS)

accelerator, which forms the last link in the LHC’s injector chain.

Timing between the two machines has to be accurate to within a

fraction of a nanosecond. A first synchronization test is scheduled

for the weekend of 9 August, for the clockwise-circulating LHC beam,

with the second to follow over the coming weeks. Tests will continue

into September to ensure that the entire machine is ready to

accelerate and collide beams at an energy of 5 TeV per beam, the

target energy for 2008. Force majeure notwithstanding, the LHC will

see its first circulating beam on 10 September at the injection

energy of 450 GeV (0.45 TeV).

 

Once stable circulating beams have been established, they will be

brought into collision, and the final step will be to commission the

LHC’s acceleration system to boost the energy to 5 TeV, taking

particle physics research to a new frontier.

 

‘We’re finishing a marathon with a sprint,’ said LHC project leader

Lyn Evans. ‘It’s been a long haul, and we’re all eager to get the LHC

research programme underway.’

 

CERN will be issuing regular status updates between now and first

collisions. Journalists wishing to attend CERN for the first beam on

10 September must be accredited with the CERN press office. Since

capacity is limited, priority will be given to news media. The event

will be webcast through http://webcast.cern.ch, and distributed

through the Eurovision network. Live stand up and playout facilities

will also be available.

 

A media centre will be established at the main CERN site, with access

to the control centres for the accelerator and experiments limited

and allocated on a first come first served basis. This includes

camera positions at the CERN Control Centre, from where the LHC is

run. Only television media will be able to access the CERN Control

Centre. No underground access will be possible.

[YT2095]

Miniature Blackholes eh...

 

Anyone fancy a round of Golf?

[Royston]

Well at least I get to celebrate my birthday before the Earth's inevitable demise. It is inevitable, I have a GCSE in biology, I know about these things.

 

Out of interest, will you be there for the LHC start-up Severian ?

[Sisyphus]

Don't they know never to cross the streams?!

[insane_alien]

I have a GCSE in biology

 

better than what i have in biology, you must be right.

 

unless my introduction to biochemical engineering class counts for much(seeing as i nearly failed it then i doubt it.)

[Severian]

Out of interest, will you be there for the LHC start-up Severian ?

 

No. It is all very technical. I would just be in the way.