LHCb: Beam Pipe portrait

The proton beams circulate in the accelerator in Ultra High Vacuum to make them interact only with each other when colliding at the interaction point. A special beam pipe "holds" the vacuum where they pass through the LHCb detector: it has to be mechanically very strong to stand the difference in pressure between the vacuum inside it and the air in the cavern but also be as transparent as possible for the particles originating in the proton−proton collisions.