CERN breaks records: Unprecedented number of particle collisions have been reached in record time

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The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is already running at full throttle.

On Wednesday 28 June 2017 the LHC established yet another record-breaking high, with 2556 proton bunches circulating in each direction of the accelerator. That’s an unprecedented number of particles reached in record time.

cern breaks record, lhc breaks records, record luminosity cern, This plot shows the values of the luminosity reached during the last few weeks by the LHC, with the record of 1.58x1034 cm-2s-1 achieved on Wednesday 28 June.
This plot shows the values of the luminosity reached during the last few weeks by the LHC, with the record of 1.58×1034 cm-2s-1 achieved on Wednesday 28 June. via CERN

The beams in the LHC are made up of bunches of protons, spaced seven metres (25 nanoseconds) apart, with each one containing more than 100 billion protons. 2556 is the maximum possible number of bunches that can be reached with the beam preparation method currently used.

The particle bunches that are delivered to the LHC are prepared and accelerated by a chain of four accelerators. Since last year, a new method to group and split the bunches enables the particles to be squeezed even closer together. With an equal number of protons, the beam diameter was reduced by 40 per cent. Denser bunches means a higher probability of collisions at the centre of the experiments.

cern breaks record, lhc breaks records, record luminosity cern, This plot shows the values of the luminosity reached during the last few weeks by the LHC, with the record of 1.58x1034 cm-2s-1 achieved on Wednesday 28 June.
The integrated luminosity as a function of time for the different years of LHC operation. 2016 was a record year and although we did not yet accumulate much luminosity in 2017, it looks promising as the sloop is the steepest of all years. via CERN

This success has led to a new luminosity record for the LHC of 1.58×1034 cm-2s-1. This figure may not mean much to most of us, but it’s crucial for the accelerator’s experts. It measures the number of potential collisions per second and per unit of area. This new peak luminosity surpasses initial expectations defined by the original designs for the LHC.

A higher luminosity means more collisions for the experiments collecting data: in just a few weeks ATLAS and CMS stored more than 6 inverse femtobarns, over an eighth of the total anticipated for the whole year.

Now listen to the strange sounds of the large hadron collider.

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10 Comments

  3. Mankind can be so arrogant fooling around with something they can’t comprehend. In fact, they may just be opening Pandora’s Box. Heaven help us WHEN that happens.

  4. Cern is crap and a failure.Scientists are desperately knocking on the door and No One is answering.God has a plan so stick to it 🙂

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