The Large Hadron Collider-present status and prospects

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), due to be commissioned in 2005, will provide particle physics with the first laboratory tool to access the energy frontier above 1 TeV, In order to achieve this, protons must be accelerated and stored at 7 TeV, colliding with an unprecedented luminosity of 10/sup 34/ cm/sup -2/ s/sup -1/. The 8.3 Tesla guide field is obtained using conventional NbTi technology cooled to below the lambda point of helium. Considerable modification of the infrastructure around the existing Large Electron Positron collider (LEP) tunnel is needed to house the LHC machine and detectors. The project is advancing according to schedule with most of the major hardware systems including cryogenics and magnets under construction, A brief status report is given and future prospects are discussed.