LHC – The 0th Year

End June:
Machine cold
Expt beampipe bakeout finished

Mid-July:
Experiments configured ready for beam
Patrol of tunnel and caverns
Controlled access only

End-July:
First injection
Commissioning with beam, including at some point
few hours collisions at 900 GeV cm

End Sept:
Collisions at 10 TeV..2008 physics run.

End Nov??
Winter shutdown: commission to 14 TeV.

New physics seen?

The UTfit group claimed that they find the ‘first evidence’ of new physics in transition.By combining analysis of all the experiments on mixing, the CP violation phase is 3 deviated from both SM and MFV(minimum flavor violation). Sounds thrilling, but we still need to wait and see.

What a Sadness

I just learned the news from Motl’s blog, that Julius Wess died on Aug 8th, just several days after SUSY 07. He even gave a colloquium on that conference, and we were joking that Bagger just went there to see this old freind. Because of his contribution to Supersymmetry, Wess would be sure to ge the Nobel Prize if LHC found SUSY particles. Now he died too suddenly, and too early, to witness his beautiful theory to be tested.

Well, maybe now he can go to ask the God directly, and find the answer even earlier than us. But will the God give him any rewards if he was right?

LHC failure

This title is a bit exaggerating. Actually, it was the magnet that failed and was damaged. See here.

I just learned a little thing about the structure of general accelerators yesterday. Experimental physics is tough, at least for me. It is too complicated and serious due to the close relationship with reality. Physics is dealing with reality, but I would like those simple things behind reality rather than reality itself. That’s why I choose theoretical physics.

Best wishes to LHC. The whole world is waiting for you. I am not. I have learned too little to ride on the tide. I am just going with my own pace.