Dec. 13, 2019 — The CERN Management has presented a new calendar for future accelerator runs to the Council, which met on December 12. Under the new schedule, the LHC will restart in May 2021, two months after the initially planned date, and Run 3 will be extended by one year, until the end of 2024. All of the equipment needed for the High-Luminosity LHC, the LHC’s successor, and its experiments will be installed during Long Shutdown 3, between 2025 and mid-2027. The High-Luminosity LHC is scheduled to come into operation at the end of 2027.
For the last year, extensive upgrades of CERN’s accelerator complex and experiments in preparation for the next LHC run and the High-Luminosity LHC have been under way. Major work is being carried out on all the machines and infrastructures: the particle accelerator chain is being entirely renovated as part of the LHC Injectors Upgrade (LIU) project, new equipment is being installed in the LHC, where upgrades are also ongoing, and the experiments are replacing numerous components, even entire subdetectors, in order to prepare for high luminosity (read also about upgrades at ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb).
The High-Luminosity LHC will generate many more collisions than the LHC, accumulating ten times more data than its predecessor throughout its operation. This groundbreaking machine will thus be able to detect extremely rare phenomena and improve the precision of measurements of the infinitesimally small. In order to fully exploit the increased quantity of data, the experiments have embarked upon ambitious detector upgrade programmes. The extra time will enable them to ready themselves for Run 3 and, then, for the High-Luminosity LHC.
About CERN
Physicists and engineers at CERN use the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments to study the basic constituents of matter – fundamental particles. Subatomic particles are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives us clues about how the particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature. We want to advance the boundaries of human knowledge by delving into the smallest building blocks of our universe. The instruments used at CERN are purpose-built particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before the beams are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions. Founded in 1954, the CERN laboratory sits astride the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe’s first joint ventures and now has 23 member states.
Source: CERN