An important piece of news that was almost lost in the excitement of the Higgs update seminar on 4 July is that the LHC proton run for 2012 is to be extended. On 3 July, a meeting between CERN management and representatives from the LHC and the experiments discussed the merits of increasing the data target for this year in the light of the announcement to be made the following day (4 July: a day to remember). The conclusion was that an additional seven weeks of running would allow the luminosity goal for the year to be increased from 15 to 20 fb–1. This should give the experiments a good supply of data to work on during the LHC’s first long shut-down as well as allow them to make progress in determining the properties of the new particle.
The original schedule foresaw proton running ending on 16 October, with a proton–ion run planned for November. In the preliminary new schedule, proton running is planned to continue until 16 December, with the proton–ion run starting after the Christmas stop on 18 January 2013 and continuing until 10 February.
