So for all of you who are from outside of particle physics a little explanation is in order.
When we want to know how much data we are recording in our particle physics experiments we often talk about this in terms of "Luminosity" which has strange units of inverse area and time.
Without giving too much of an explanation this is basically a measure of how many collisions we are having and how much data we are recording.
The CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment currently operating at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN has posted their Luminosity plots online here:
http://cms-service-lumi.web.cern.ch/cms-service-lumi/overview.php
So you can actually see as the improvements in the accelerator and the operation of the detector improve the recorded luminosity and delivered luminosity (recorded being what the detector captures and delivered being what the accelerator pumps through the experiment) increase at nearly a exponential rate!
Not to brag too much but the same plots of the Tevatron at Fermilab can be found here:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/now/tevlum.html
All I'm saying is our inital Luminosity at the start of a store (when the particles start colliding) is pretty impressive when compared to all the data the LHC has taken so far...but they will catch up!
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