The goal for 2015 will be to produce 13 TeV proton collisions, which is unprecedented. (Foto: CERN)

LHC's second run starts 2015

CERN announced at the 174th session of the CERN Council on 12 December that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is gearing up for its second three-year run. The LHC is the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world and the whole 27-kilometre superconducting machine is now almost cooled to its nominal operating temperature of 1.9 degrees above absolute zero.

During a 2-year technical stop the machine has been prepared for running at almost double the energy of the LHC’s first run. On 9 December 2014, the magnets of one sector of the LHC were successfully powered to the level needed for beams to reach 6.5 TeV. The goal for 2015 will be proton collisions at double the energy.

“After the huge amount of work done over the last two years, the LHC is almost like a new machine,” said CERN’s Director for Accelerators and Technology Frédérick Bordry. ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb, the four large experiments of the LHC, are also undergoing major preparatory work for run 2. They will now enter their final commissioning phase.