Here is a a more intimate look of what was happening
http://lhc-commissioning.web.cern.ch/lhc-commissioning/news/LHC-news.htm
LHC Commissioning 2009*
*
The LHC finished its initial commissioning with beam at 18:00 Wednesday 16th December. Since first beam on Friday 20th November:
Friday November 20th Injection of both beams - rough RF capture *
Saturday November 21st Beam 1 circulating - lifetime 10 hours
Sunday November 22nd Beam 2 circulating - lifetime 3 hours
Monday November 23rd First pilot collisions at 450 GeV
First trial ramp (lost 560 GeV - tunes) tune feedback on 1 beam
Tuesday November 26th Precycle established
Energy matching between SPS & LHC *
Sunday November 29th Ramp to 1.07 TeV and then 1.18 TeV (00:43 Monday) Tune PLL commissioned
Monday 30th November Solenoids on Coupling & orbit compensated
Tuesday 1st - Sunday 6th December Aperture, collimation and beam dump studies continued - protection qualified to a sufficent level at 450 GeV to allow "stable beams" to be declared. *
Sunday 6th 06:55 Stable beams at 450 GeV - 4 on 4 pilot intensities Initial struggle with vertical tune
Tuesday 8th December Ramp 2 on 2 - lost one beam after 3 minutes - but first collisions in Atlas (21:40) at 1.18 TeV No logging - suspect loss due tune swing at end of ramp
Friday 11th December (01:30) Stable beam collisions at 450 GeV with high bunch intensities: 4 x 2 10^10 per beam *
Monday 14th December Ramp 2 on 2 to 1.18 TeV - quiet beams - collisons in all four experiments *
Monday 14th December 16 on 16 at 450 GeV - stable beams *
Wednesday 16th December Ramped 4 on 4 to 1.18 TeV - squeezed to 7 m in IR5 - collisions in all four experiments Step 1: to collision tunes
Step 2: to 9 m
Step 3: to 7 m
Wednesday 16th December 18:00 End of run *A nice record of the 26 days courtesy of CMS's e-commentary team.
Our somewhat fragmented week by week record:
Week 51
Week 50**
Week49 *
Week48 ***
Week47 *