First collision data from a new detector at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider

CERN's huge particle accelerator is working its way toward full operation and a new phase of exploration. But it is not only the accelerator that has been upgraded - the particle detectors have some new tricks too

Over the last few weeks the LHC - the gigantic particle accelerator at CERN, Geneva - has begun accelerating beams of protons up to record-breaking energies. It has also begun colliding them together again, although so far it has not done both at the same time. The only collisions so far are at lower energies. It is when the high energy beams collide that the physics really starts. Even so, there are some interesting data to look at already.

The experiment I work on, ATLAS, has installed a new detector called the Insertable B Layer (IBL). This is right in the heart of ATLAS, as near as possible to the point where the protons smash into each other head-on.