Switzerland Gallery

ATLAS detector, CERN

ATLAS detector. Composite image of the ATLAS (a torodial LHC apparatus) detector (circular) at CERN (the European particle physics laboratory) near Geneva, Switzerland. The detector will be placed around the large hadron collider (LHC), CERN's highest energy particle accelerator. A computer representation of the proton beams that will flow through the LHC has been added to the photograph. ATLAS is a general- purpose detector designed to measure the broadest possible range of particles and physical processes that could result from the collision of the proton beams at very high energies. A pilot run of the LHC is scheduled for summer 2007

© DAVID PARKER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Mock-up of Large Hadron Collider at CERN

Mock-up of the Large Hadron Collider. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the proposed new accelerator for the CERN European particle physics laboratory. The magnets for the LHC (seen here in blue) will sit on top of the existing Large Electron-Positron (LEP) accelerator at CERN's Geneva site. The LEP occupies a tunnel some 27km in circumference. Advances in magnet design mean that the LHC will be able to bend beams of protons and heavy ions around the same curvature as the far lighter electrons used in LEP. This will create far higher collision energies than the existing LEP ring, allowing scientists to delve even further into sub-atomic processes

© DAVID PARKER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Proton collision C014/1797

Particle tracks from a proton-proton collision seen by the CMS (compact muon solenoid) detector at CERN (the European particle physics laboratory) near Geneva, Switzerland. Before the collision the ions had been accelerated by the large hadron collider (LHC). A large number of particles (orange lines) were created by the collision. Among them was a Higgs boson. The particle was not seen, but is revealed through its decay products; a pair of Z bosons that each decay into a pair of muons (long red lines). The Higgs boson is thought to give other particles mass. The first sighting of it was announced by scientists at CERN on 4th July 2012

© CMS EXPERIMENT, CERN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY