Schedule
This is how CERN will communicate the major milestones on the way to first physics:
1) Start-up of the accelerator in November
First beam circulated in the Large Hadron Collider on 20 November 2009, and first collisions at 900 GeV (450 GeV per beam) followed on 23 November. The LHC set a world record for beam energy on 29 November, accelerating beams to energies of 1.18 TeV. Please check the links on left to view the press releases issued for each of these milestones, along with the latest information, photos and video footage.
2) MEDIA EVENT: "LHC first physics" at the energy of 3.5 TeV per beam:
There will be a media event at CERN for the first high energy collisions at 7 TeV (3.5 TeV per beam). This event is expected to occur in the first quarter of 2010. Bringing beams into collision is a complex process, and it is impossible for CERN to announce a more precise date until roughly a week in advance. We realise that this makes planning hard for you and thank you for your patience – we will send updates as early as possible.
Accreditation for this event is closed. We plan to host media in the control centres of the LHC experiments on a rotating schedule. These control centres will be the heart of the action, but space is very limited. There will also be a media centre in a hall on the CERN site.
Some of the experiments have data centres away from CERN, which may also be able to host media. Details of these will be posted on this website as soon as they become available.
These pages will be regularly updated with information about the event, including information for broadcasters concerning distribution of images from the events. Updates will also be distributed via CERN's twitter feed, http://twitter.com/cern