2016—an exceptional year for the LHC
The number of collisions recorded by ATLAS and CMS during the proton run from April to the end of October was 60% higher than anticipated. The performance is even more remarkable considering that colliding protons with lead ions, which have a mass 206 times greater and a charge 82 times higher, requires numerous painstaking adjustments to the machine. An event recorded by the CMS experiment during the LHC’s proton-lead ion run for which no fewer than 449 particles tracks were reconstructed. A proton-lead ion collision recorded by the LHCb experiment in the last few days of the LHC’s 2016 run. Credit: LHCb The integrated luminosity of the LHC with proton-proton collisions in 2016 compared to previous years.