The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) operations began in 2008. Its superconducting equipment requires a cooldown/warm-up cycle lasting several months to access some key elements like superconducting magnets, making annual shutdowns impractical. A new lifecycle management approach for programmed stops was therefore necessary. The large interventions were grouped and performed during long shutdowns....
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) Run 24 was 27 cryo weeks, operating with collisions at the STAR and sPHENIX detectors. The primary mode was polarized protons at 100 GeV, where there was 22 weeks of physics production. sPHENIX continued commissioning, becoming fully operational after 13 weeks and the addition of isobutane to their TPC gas mixture. STAR had a low luminosity run...
We review the 2024 Pb-Pb ion run at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in terms of the operational experience, the problems encountered and the main results. This run was the second heavy-ion physics period of LHC Run 3 at 6.8 Z TeV. With only 18 days scheduled for physics data-taking, the key objective was to address the problems encountered in the 2023 Pb-Pb run and establish stable and...
