LHC to Run Through 2012

An important announcement was made today by CERN indicating that the Large Hadron Collider will run through 2012 choosing to put off a previously long term shutdown to repair known problems that exist with the magnets.

This announcement comes on the heels of the announcement that the Tevatron will shutdown sometime (September?) of this year thus ending the High Energy Physics program at Fermilab.

Part of the announcement I found interesting was:

“With the LHC running so well in 2010, and further improvements in performance expected, there’s a real chance that exciting new physics may be within our sights by the end of the year,” Said CERN’s Research Director, Sergio Bertolucci. “For example, if nature is kind to us and the lightest supersymmetric particle, or the Higgs boson, is within reach of the LHC’s current energy, the data we expect to collect by the end of 2012 will put them within our grasp."

That is of course providing the Higgs isn't light as has been suspected by many. If nature chose that as the possibility then really the Tevatron was the right game to be playing...but only time will tell.

Granted I am a little sore still about the Tevatron not getting the funding I think it needs to finish on the strong note it deserves...but there are really a lot of physics questions left.

Additionally, while the LHC was showing major improvements in the last weeks of Proton/Proton collisions (nearly doubling their data set in one week) particle accelerators are tricky things and previous results does not predict future performance. There is still a lot of tuning to do before this machine is ready to do the monumental stuff it promises.

There is a good deal to be optimistic about as was outlined in a talk I attended from CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) given at Fermilab this last week. (See Link Here w/ link to talk to come...)