Proton-Nucleus Collisions in the LHC

Following the high integrated luminosity accumulated in the first two Pb-Pb collision runs in 2010 and 2011, the LHC heavy-ion physics community requested a first run with p-Pb collisions. This almost unprecedented mode of collider operation was not foreseen in the baseline design of the LHC whose two-in-one magnet design imposed equal rigidity and, hence, unequal revolution frequencies, during injection and ramp. Nevertheless, after a successful pilot physics fill in 2012, the LHC provided of p-Pb luminosity per experiment, at an energy of 5.02 TeV per colliding nucleon pair, with several variations of the operating conditions, in early 2013. Together with a companion p-p run at 2.76 TeV, this was the last physics before the present long shutdown. We summarise the beam physics, operational adaptations and strategy that resulted in extremely rapid commissioning. Finally, we give an account of the progress of the run and provide an analysis of the performance.