The LHC starts regular operations at 7TeV [Black Hole Alert!]

After a few false starts this morning, the LHC started its planned two-year run of continual operations at 7TeV. The first few packets of protons set off a instrument warning that had to be cleared, or couldn't be focused properly. Once those hiccups were out of the way, however, the collisions began and have continued at least to the time that this was being typed. All detectors are recording data, and both the ATLAS and CMS groups have already posted images of some of the hundreds of recorded collisions (such as the one above, which one reader termed "confetti for nerds") online.

CERN's press release says that, by the end of the planned 18-24 month run, we'll have enough data to have detected any supersymmetric particles up to 800GeV in mass, up from our current limit of 400GeV. Supersymmetric particles mirror the known ones in the Standard Model, and include candidates for dark matter. It also noted that over 2,000 graduate students will now have something to do with their time.

The US Department of Energy, which runs Fermi and Brookhaven National Labs, has also provided a press release that echoes the one from CERN. Those two labs serve as the primary contact points for the CMS and ATLAS detectors in the US, respectively, distributing data to a huge grid computing system at other national labs and universities. The release is worth reading simply to get a sense of the scale of the grid, as it contains a full list of the participating institutions.

Congratulations to everyone around the globe who have been working for years to get to this moment.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/03/the-lhc-starts-regular-operations-at-7tev.ars?comments=1#comments-bar

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