CERN Accelerating science

SME

COMPASS paves the way to new discoveries

COMPASS, a “COmmon Muon and Proton Apparatus for Structure and Spectroscopy”, is a multipurpose high-energy physics experiment at the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). Following the approval of the project in 1997 the spectrometer was installed in…

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Accelerating Argon Ions at the SPS

This year, the SPS accelerated argon ions for the first time, delivering beam to the NA61/SHINE experiment in the North Area. NA61/SHINE explores the phenomenon of deconfinement by studying the collisions of ions of different masses, at different…

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Celebrating ISOLDE's 50th anniversary

On the 17th December 1964, Victor Frederick Weisskopf, who was strongly supporting diversity in CERN's scientific programme, gave the green light to a proposal for an isotope separator on-line with the CERN synchro-cyclotron, marking the beginning…

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TOTEM Setting Out towards New Discovery Horizons

With the first LHC long shutdown approaching its end, TOTEM is looking back on a busy year marked on one hand by Run-1 data analysis culminating in 3 publications and more in progress, and on the other hand by a major consolidation and upgrade…

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Final tests for the LHCf detector

LHCf is the LHC experiment dedicated to measuring neutral particles such as gamma-rays or neutrons at the very forward region of LHC IP1, in order to verify hadronic interactions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. The experiment consists of two…

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CLOUD restarts experiments

On 21 September this year, CLOUD restarted experiments following the end of LS1 for the PS. Many thanks to Lau Gatignon and the PS team for their efficient re-commissioning of the beam. During LS1, in October-November 2013, CLOUD had carried out a…

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NA62 joins the search for new physics at CERN

After the long-shut down the SPS accelerator restarted in the beginning of October along with a new experiment, NA62.  In contrast to the LHC, where new physics is studied at the highest possible energy, NA62 challenges the Standard Model by…

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ISOLDE first to produce physics after the LS1

ISOLDE, CERN’s nuclear physics facility started physics the 1st of August. Several experiments have already been completed thanks to the wonderful job done by Magdalena Kowalska, our beam coordinator, the technical CERN team and all the users that…

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A bright future for neutrons at n_TOF

After the long shutdown, the newly constructed second experimental area (EAR2) [1] of the n_TOF facility has received its first neutron beam on July 25 2014 [2]. The neutron beam in EAR2 complements, and runs in parallel with, the existing…

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Proton Synchrotron accelerator delivers first beams

The CERN injectors, up to the PS, started operations mid-June. The long-running ISOLDE radioactive ion-beam facility on the PS Booster resumed operations by the end of July. Several experiments that use protons from the PS are already…

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