Speaker
Description
In 2025 CERN’s ion injector complex delivered both oxygen and neon ion beams to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for the first time, with oxygen ion beams only previously having been accelerated in the late 1980s for Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) fixed-target experiments at CERN. In addition to the initially planned oxygen run, a run with a neon isotope with the same charge to mass ratio as oxygen was also scheduled, following a fruitful workshop between theoretical, experimental and accelerator physicists, underscoring the value of such cross disciplinary exchanges. Given that neon and oxygen have very different nuclear structures, comparing the data from both types of collisions provides a unique opportunity to investigate nuclear geometry driven hydrodynamic flow in light ion collisions at the LHC. The accelerator complex achieved three objectives during this running period: (1) oxygen-oxygen, proton-oxygen and neon-neon collisions in the LHC, (2) primary oxygen beams for the SPS Heavy Ion and Neutrino Experiment (NA61/SHINE) fixed-target experiment in the SPS North Area, and (3) beam studies for the High Energy Accelerators for Radiation Testing and Shielding (HEARTS) ion irradiation to electronics proposal in the PS East Area. We report on the performance of the ion injector chain, highlighting key limitations and the operational mitigations deployed. These results guide the selection of ion species to maximize nucleon–nucleon luminosity for LHC ion runs, thereby laying the groundwork for the future ion programme at CERN.
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