Soon, CERN personnel will take a well-deserved winter break, just like the accelerator complex. Following a successful year, the remainder of the accelerator complex was stopped on 2 December, marking the official start of the year-end technical stop

Lead-ion physics at the LHC and the SPS North Area is already under way and progressing well. The final lead-ion user in the PS East Area started its physics run on 13 November

The LHC injector chain has been switched to a new beam production scheme to explore its potential to produce more collisions in the LHC and to compare its performance to that of the standard LHC beam

The LHC is performing well and the injector complex is treating its experimental users to a high level of beam availability

Almost the whole accelerator complex is now in “physics mode”, routinely delivering the various types of beam to the different physics facilities and experiments. Notably, the intensity ramp-up in the LHC is progressing remarkably well

The injection of the first protons into the LHC is scheduled for 11 March, but could be brought forward by a few days if all goes well

A new physics run is about to begin! The first particle beams should reach the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on 11 March

The first beams are already circulating in the Linac4 and PS Booster and should reach the LHC on 11 March. A new physics run is about to begin!

In about a week, lead ions will be sent from the SPS into the LHC to collide in the accelerator’s four big experiments

FLOTUS is a new addition to the CLOUD experiment at CERN. By accelerating the oxidation of organic vapours before injecting them into the CLOUD chamber, FLOTUS allows more complex atmospheric phenomena to be studied