Now there's a rather jarring juxtaposition of Scripture, science and Paul McCartney!
But that's what'll be happening this weekend. Two weeks ago (already!) the door was closed, and the proton bunches slammed into it, showering our detector with billions of muons each time. They called 'em "beam splash events", or "shots". We got around a thousand shots that weekend. Since then I've been feverishly looking at the data and preparing hardware settings that will help to synchronize all the channels of the detector. And getting some pretty plots out of it too...
(Note this plot has been scrubbed of all meaningful content, in keeping with the CMS blogging rules ;)
Now the settings are loaded in, the excitement and the stress and anxiety also are ramping up across the project, because tonight the doors will open and beam will pass through, from both directions. By Monday they say we will have collisions! This is a very fast progression, but of course they say they're ready. Hopefully this time they're right.
Here's some useful information, all in the public domain (except the last), sent to all the collaboration, about the new startup of the LHC.
Dear CMS Colleagues,
As you all know the LHC re-start is underway and first collisions are expected very soon. In fact, the first milestone is circulating beams as early as tomorrow evening.
To help all of us in CMS to follow the exciting events at CERN we are preparing a number of live links:
1) Follow the latest CERN news using twitter: http://twitter.com/cern
2) The CMS "e-commentary" tells you what is happening in point 5: http://cmsdoc.cern.ch/cms/performance/FirstBeam/cms-e-commentary09.htm
This page is public and any images shown there may be used by the press (they are Copyright CERN).
3) Live event display images will be available via the Web at the CMS Outreach site (OK for press) http://cms.cern.ch/
4) CMS-TV has several live channels to enable you to see LHC Page 1,
CMS DAQ status, etc. http://cmsdoc.cern.ch/cmscc/cmstv/cmstv.jsp?channel=1&frames=yes
(click magnifying glass / F11 to go full screen).
These channels will be public (as the TV is) -- feedback is welcome.
5) A Webcast of the live video link between P5, CERN, FNAL and DESY will be provided to a limited number of locations (all CMS Centres and also all Institutes who request it).
Enjoy,
-PKBGD
P.S. Did you hear that the French Air-Force tried to take out the LHC?? Dang it, who's manning the deflector shields out there?? My thesis is on the line!
2 comments:
Nice. I was trying to find something that would give me updates on the LHC status. Thanks!
Phil - you are the ontopofit blog person of the, um, month! I just saw on the internet that they had fired it up and made a lot more progress than anticipated. My next thought was, "hey, I wonder if Phil has posted anything?" And INDEED, you had!! Thanks! Always appreciate reading your updates and feel kinda privileged to have a frontrow seat on the happenings. Please give Kathy and Ben a BIG hug for me. :) Naomi
Post a Comment