**6.1 LHC performance**

The LHC delivered the first pp collisions in the end of 2009, and the stable operations startup was in March 2010. Since then, the machine has been working amazingly well compared to other related facilities. Already in 2009, the machine beaten the world record in the beam energy and other records have followed. In 2010, the delivered integrated luminosity was 18.1 pb−<sup>1</sup> and already during the first months of operation in 2011, the delivered luminosity was 265 pb−1. This is about a quarter of the complete target luminosity for 2010 and 2011 [63], which is supposed to be sufficient to get the answer concerning the existence of the Higgs boson. Also, as mentioned in section 1, the machine has beaten the records concerning the stored energy and also the beam intensity.

The target number of bunches per a beam of protons stated for 2011 was reached already in the middle of the year: 1380 bunches. The final target luminosity of 10<sup>34</sup> cm−2s−<sup>1</sup> is being approached rapidly, at present it is about 1033 cm−2s−<sup>1</sup> [64].
