Large Hadron Collider sets world record beam intensity

These are exciting times in particle physics.

Last night the LHC collided beams with a luminosity of 4.67 × 10³²cm^-2s^-1, passing the previous world record of 4.024 × 10³²cm^-2s^-1, which was set by the Tevatron collider in 2010.

The intensity, or luminosity is a measure of how many proton collisions per second are happening in the LHC. The units here are protons per unit area per second. So we are getting them at a faster rate than anyone ever did before.

The detectors are also recording what happens: here is a plot showing the summed luminosity collected by the ATLAS experiment so far this year.
The units on this plot are inverse picobarns, which Lily talked about here. For reference, last year we collected about 45 pb^-1. So we have passed that already and are collecting data at a faster rate than ever...

This means more precise measurements and more sensitivity to the new particles and forces which may be out there.

The CERN press release on this is here. Busy busy...