According to the March 19, 2010 CERN press release 'LHC sets new record - accelerates beam to 3.5 TeV,' the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) achieved the highest energy ever achieved in a particle accelerator when, at 5:20 a.m. local Geneva, Switzerland time, it successfully circulated two 3.5 TeV proton beams.

Steve Myers, the director for CERN's Accelerators and Technology, stated in the CERN article, 'Getting the beams to 3.5 TeV is testimony to the soundness of the LHC's overall design, and the improvements we've made since the breakdown in September 2008. And it's a great credit to the patience and dedication of the LHC team.'

The next step is to collide these two proton beams while they are circulating inside the LHC at 3.5 TeV per beam'”for a total energy level of 7 Tera-electron volts (TeV).

The date for that world record will be announced in the near future.

An electron volt (eV) is the kinetic energy gained by an electron (e) passing through a potential difference of one volt (V). One electron volt (1 eV) is equal to 1.602 x 10^-19 joules. And, one trillion (10¹²) eV is equal to 1 TeV.

More information about 'How Big is an Electron Volt?', visit the Fermilab website.

Page two discusses some records and accomplishments for the Large Hadron Collider over the past four or so months.

 

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Some of the records and accomplishments set over the past four months are:

'¢    LHC had the first circulating beam (one beam) of 0.45 TeV on November 20, 2009.

'¢    Twin (two) circulating beams successfully established on November 23, 2009.

'¢    Beam energy of 1.18 TeV set on November 30, 2009'”a new world's record.

'¢    Beam energy of 2.36 TeV accomplished by December 16, 2009'”a new world's record.

'¢    LHC's four major experiments, ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb, recorded over a million particle collisions during the 2009 time frame.

'¢    LHC shut down beginning in the middle of December in order to prepare for these higher energies, first recorded on March 19, 2010.

The article concludes by stating, 'Once 7 TeV collisions have been established, the plan is to run continuously for a period of 18-24 months, with a short technical stop at the end of 2010. This will bring enough data across all the potential discovery areas to firmly establish the LHC as the world's foremost facility for high-energy particle physics.'

Page three concludes with comments from the CERN director general.

 

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The CERN director general made a statement, both in French and English, on March 19, 2010, concerning the progress of the LHC. (CERN is short for European Organization for Nuclear Research.)

Part of it, entitled '3.5 TeV: Patience pays dividends,' is stated here by Rolf Heuer: 'All this augurs very well for the future, but we must not lose sight of the fact that the LHC is new, and it wasn't bought off the shelf."

Heuer adds, It is a state of the art prototype that is pushing the limits of technology across a wide range of disciplines, and as such it needs to be treated with the greatest respect. We have recovered well from the incident of 19 September 2008, and are now poised on the threshold of a new era of discovery. But the legacy of that incident will be with us for some time to come.'