The CERN accelerator complex is being switched off step-by-step in order to prepare for Long Shutdown 2 (LS2)

The one-month 2018 heavy-ion run has just one week left to go

The first collisions of lead nuclei mark the start of a new LHC heavy-ion run

At the end of October, the last protons for Run 2 will circulate inside the LHC. The next protons will be injected only in the spring of 2021!

Since the recovery from the recent machine development period, the LHC has been in luminosity production mode, crawling its way up towards 60 fb-1

The LHC has just come out of a successful week of machine development (MD), used to carry out studies covering a wide spectrum of topics

At 2.02 p.m. on Saturday, 7 July, the last fill of the special physics run was dumped, ready for standard physics to resume

The latest Machine Development period ended on early Monday morning, 18 June, after six days of intensive studies of the LHC accelerator

As I write this report, the integrated luminosity counter for ATLAS and CMS is at 23.1 fb-1, exceeding our goal of around 18 fb-1

The LHC is in full production mode with 2556 bunches per beam and has already successfully provided 14.6 fb-1 to each of ATLAS and CMS

On 5 May, the last step in the intensity ramp-up process was completed, ten days ahead of schedule. The LHC is now filled with 2556 bunches per beam

On 28 April 2018, 13 days ahead of schedule, the operators of the LHC successfully injected 1200 bunches of protons into the machine and collided them