When: Thursday, 12 March from 2.30 to 3.30pm (CET) – Open seating as from 2.15pm
Speakers: CERN’s Director General, Rolf Heuer and Director of Accelerators, Frédérick Bordry, and representatives of the LHC experiments

Dear Journalists,

CERN is pleased to invite you to the above press briefing which will take place on Thursday 12 March, in the Globe of Science and Innovation, 1st floor, from 2.30 to 3.30pm (CET).

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is ready to start up for its second three-year run. The 27km LHC is the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world operating at a temperature of -217 degrees Centigrade and powered to a current of 11,000 amps. Run 2 of the LHC follows a two-year technical stop that prepared the machine for running at almost double the energy of the first run. After substantial consolidation and improvements the LHC will restart at an energy of 6.5 TeV per beam, which will open up a new window for discovery – collisions at a total energy of 13 TeV are expected late Spring.

CERN General Director Rolf Heuer, the Director of Accelerators Frédérick Bordry, and the LHC experiment representatives will take questions regarding the LHC second three-year run, focussing on the technical challenges in preparing for Run 2, and on the new discovery potential.

LHC experimental physicists and theorists will be at your disposal for interviews at the end of the briefing. The highlight of the machine’s successful first run was the discovery by the ATLAS and CMS experiments of the long-sought Higgs boson.

You can find material prepared on the LHC restart on the webpage.

Journalists are invited to register by email before 11 March to obtain accreditation. Please note that you or anyone can follow the briefing by webcast on the day.

About CERN

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world’s leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Romania is a Candidate for Accession. Serbia is an Associate Member in the pre-stage to Membership. India, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Union, JINR and UNESCO have Observer Status.

For more information, please contact:
CERN Press Office
press.office@cern.ch
+41 22 767 34 32
+41 22 767 21 41