Target integrated luminosity for 2011
Target integrated luminosity for 2011
At the start of the year, the target integrated luminosity for 2011 was 1/fb. Already it's over 0.5/fb and the goal for this week is to add another 0.25/fb. So by end of June sometime, it looks as if they'll achieve this target. What's the plan after that?
Re: Target integrated luminosity for 2011
They should just keep going and collect as much data as they can. More data means more discovery potential.
Re: Target integrated luminosity for 2011
Or they could increase the machine development phases so they learn more about the machine and implement the important upgrades in the winter shut down so that 2012 is purely for data collection.PhilG wrote:They should just keep going and collect as much data as they can. More data means more discovery potential.
Re: Target integrated luminosity for 2011
I'm pretty sure they're already interleaving physics runs with machine development the way that assures the best data delivery rate as it's their main goal - to deliver as much data as possible.
With current limitation to 3.5 TeV per beam the only direction they can expand to now is to storing more bunches in the beam but with 50 ns spacing they're already almost at the limit. I'm not sure whether they will attempt 25 ns bunches or not, if they do that may deliver almost twice the current luminosity but may have some surprises similar to the electron cloud problem along the way.
Upgrade from 3.5 TeV to 7 TeV is matter of stopping LHC for about a year (just warming it up and later cooling it down is matter of 4 months) so I don't wonder they decided to run 2012 also at 3.5 TeV with chance to get enough data to confirm or disprove Higgs at pretty nice range of energies instead of waiting halfway and delivering the same data two times faster one year later.
With current limitation to 3.5 TeV per beam the only direction they can expand to now is to storing more bunches in the beam but with 50 ns spacing they're already almost at the limit. I'm not sure whether they will attempt 25 ns bunches or not, if they do that may deliver almost twice the current luminosity but may have some surprises similar to the electron cloud problem along the way.
Upgrade from 3.5 TeV to 7 TeV is matter of stopping LHC for about a year (just warming it up and later cooling it down is matter of 4 months) so I don't wonder they decided to run 2012 also at 3.5 TeV with chance to get enough data to confirm or disprove Higgs at pretty nice range of energies instead of waiting halfway and delivering the same data two times faster one year later.