Experience with the CERN pp complex

In the CERN pp complex, antiprotons for collisions with protons or for direct use in experimental targets are provided over a very wide energy range, namely : pp collisions at S = 540 GeV in the SPS, pp collisions at S = 52 GeV in the ISR, p's down to a kinetic energy of 5 MeV from LEAR. This report gives an account of the experience gained so far, mainly in 1982, in actual physics runs in SPS and ISR, and during the commissioning of LEAR. The main novelty concerns an extended physics run of two months in the SPS, where a peak luminosity of 5.3×1028 cm^-2 s^-1 was reached and an integrated luminosity of 28 nb^-2 or 2.80×10³⁴ cm^-2) was supplied to the two main experiments UA1 and UA2. Another very encouraging result was obtained in LEAR where p beams, extracted from the Antiproton Accumulator at 3.5 GeV/c and decelerated in the PS to 0.6 GeV/c, were successfully injected and captured in LEAR, decelerated to 50 MeV kinetic energy and stochastically cooled. The first physics run will take place this summer. The ISR have exploited their excellent vacuum and reliability by storing antiprotons for physics runs of up to two weeks. There have been 10 physics runs to date and the peak luminosity achieved was 2.5×10²⁸ cm^-2 s^-1.