LHC Machine Outreach
Blog 2008
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LHC Machine Outreach Blog 2008 |
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1st October The repair of the damaged region of sector 34 is going to take a while and will run into the planned winter shutdown. We go for circulating beam in the LHC from May 1st next at the earliest. 22nd September Top 8 LHC videos 19th September Not good.11:17 while ramping the main dipoles in sector 34 to their 5.5 TeV level. Press release 17th September Not clear to anyone how we got away with last week. After a couple of days with beam following the launch, during which we made incredible progress, we've been hit a a couple of blown transformers (big ones!), some less serious cryogenics problems and at the moment we are still trying get things together again. Should get beam back tonight but it has be a reminder that the LHC is a big beast and there's a lot of stuff that has to run at the same time for it to work. CERM start-up (Coffee Expresso Research Machine on YouTube - courtesy of my mate Adrian) 10th September 9th September For some reason we're going to try and start full-on commissioning of the LHC with beam under the gaze of the world's press tomorrow. The car park has been fenced off, there's huge TV lorry outside and banners all over the control room. Due to a transformer fault the cryogenics tripped last night and we won't get sectors 78 and 81 back to later this evening. Should be interesting. Particle Zoo [for the under 5s] 29th August August is just ending - we've had a couple of very successful injection tests and it is getting very busy, but still with a reasonable sense of calm. Hardware commissioning is slowly drawing to a close and electrical quality assurance announced they'd finished a couple of days ago at the 8:30 meeting to a round of applause. Operations go on 24 hour shifts from the 1st September and we're bracing ourselves for the media and the attempt to get a beam around the whole machine on the 10th. 30th July Dude, like the LHC rap hits the controls room 29th July Access systems test in progress - big team have a lot of fun closing the ring and checking all interlocks etc. This is preparatioin for an Injection Test on 9/10 August, when we hope to put beam into part of the LHC for the first time. Machine mostly cold and furious activity everywhere to finish circuit commissioning, beat the cryogenic system into submission etc. 16th July Ring almost completely cold - sectors 78 & 81, have been nearly fully commissioned, are floating while an intervention on the controls electronics takes place. Status of the eight sectors:
12th June 2008 29th May 2008 Status of the eight sectors:
Cryogenics are still doing an excellent job and the rest of us don't really realize that we are meant to close the machine in less than two months. 25th April 2008 Things are hotting up. Probably best summarized by having a look at the status of the eight sectors:
Cryogenics is doing an excellent job and throwing the rest of us into panic. 27th March 2008 7th March 2008 The Hardware Commissioning team spent a happy February commissioning the cold sector 45. Things went very well with the main dipole and quadrupole circuits been push up to around the 6.2 TeV level. The tests culminated with 138 of the 183 circuits powered together to the 5.3 TeV level. Sector 45 is now being warmed up to allow the connect of the inner triplet magnets to the left of CMS. Sector 56 is now cold and powering tests should start soon. Sector 78 & 81 are in the process of cool down. It is very busy out there! 8th February 2008 Just for the fun (using the term loosely here) of it, you can now enjoy collimators even on YouTube: 31st January 3rd training quench in the dipole string of sector 45 at around 10,200 A - well over the 6 TeV level. 28th January Sector 45 is cold and powering tests are ongoing. The main dipole string is being pushed into new territory with the first training quenches being provoked as the magnets are pushed towards 12,000 A (the maximum current). 28th January - misc ESA’s orbiting gamma-ray observatory, Integral, has made the first unambiguous discovery of highly energetic X-rays coming from a galaxy cluster. The find has shown the cluster to be a giant particle accelerator.
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