Proton beams are back in the LHC
Geneva, 5 April 2015. After two years of intense maintenance and consolidation, and several months of preparation for restart, the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, is back in operation. Today at 10.41am, a proton beam was back in the 27-kilometer ring, followed at 12.27pm by a second beam rotating in the opposite direction. These beams circulated at their injection energy of 450 GeV. Over the coming days, operators will check all systems before increasing energy of the beams. "Operating accelerators for the benefit of the physics community is what CERN 's here for," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. "Today, CERN's heart beats once more to the rhythm of the LHC.

