First collisions at the LHC

ATLAS event

By James Dacey

After all the lunchtime excitement surrounding the first circulation of two proton beams, the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will have enjoyed lavish dinners yesterday after their machine had recorded its first collisions by mid afternoon.

Just after noon (Central European Time), CERN confirmed the acceleration of separate beams of protons in opposing directions around the LHC’s 27 km ring.

Announcing the success via a web broadcast, a bunch of CERN officials suggested that the first low energy collisions would be made within the next two weeks.

However, by the late afternoon the partlcle physics laboratory had issued another public announcement that the beams were made to cross at two places around the ring.

What you can see in this picture is an image produced by the ATLAS detector, which recorded its first candidate for collisions at 14.22 in the afternoon.

“The tracks we are seeing are beautiful,” said LHCb spokesperson Andrei Golutvin, “we’re all ready for serious data taking in a few days’ time”.