Protons will be skirting around the 27-km Large Hadron Collider by the end of September, say CERN officials, with the first proton collisions expected four or five weeks later.
The lab will take the unusual step of running its brand new 鈧�3 billion machine throughout the winter 鈥� with a short break around Christmas 鈥渢o allow people not to get divorced!鈥� says CERN鈥檚 director for research and computing, Sergio Bertolucci.
With winter energy prices, that will add about 鈧�8 million to the LHC鈥檚 electricity bill 鈥� about 40% of its annual cost. But physicists on the LHC鈥檚 four giant experiments will reap the rewards by late 2010, when they should have collected enough data at a collision energy of 10 TeV to rival the Tevatron at Fermilab, perhaps seeing signs of new fundamental particles.
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The latest startup schedule is eerily similar to last year鈥檚, when the LHC fired up on 10 September. Just nine days later, an electrical fault ruptured its liquid-helium plumbing, putting the machine out of commission.
CERN is now installing an early-warning system to detect nano-ohm rises in resistance in the superconducting wires that power the LHC鈥檚 bending magnets. It is also fitting all magnets with additional pressure relief valves to reduce collateral damage in case of a similar incident. Half of the valves will be in place this year.
The startup date is likely to please thousands of physicists who have had to deal with several slips in the LHC timetable in the last few years. 鈥淭he schedule is aggressive,鈥� says CERN鈥檚 director of accelerators and technology Steve Myers, 鈥渂ut we have a machine that鈥檚 just raring to go.鈥�
