New schedule for CERN’s accelerators and experiments
The schedule for the current long shutdown (LS2) has had to be modified due to the COVID-19 pandemic
On 23 October, the CERN Management validated the new schedule for activities taking place during the second long shutdown (LS2), which began at the start of 2019. The schedule has had to be modified due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The operation of CERN’s accelerators is subject to scheduled shutdowns to allow important repair and upgrade work to take place. The present shutdown, LS2, is devoted to preparations for Run 3 of the LHC, which will have an integrated luminosity (indicator proportional to the number of collisions) equal to the two previous runs combined, and for the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), the successor to the LHC, which will begin operation at the end of 2027.
The new schedule for LS2 anticipates that the first test beams will circulate in the LHC at theend of September 2021, four months later than the date planned before the COVID-19 crisis. To give the LHC’s main experiments – ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb – time to complete their own upgrade programmes, Run 3 of the LHC will begin at the start of March 2022.
https://home.cern/news/news/accelerators/new-schedule-cerns-accelerators-and-experiments