The 600-MeV SynchroCyclotron (SC), which came into operation in 1957, was CERN’s first accelerator. It provided beams for CERN’s first experiments in particle and nuclear physics. In 1967, it began supplying beams for a dedicated radioactive-ion-beam facility called ISOLDE, which still carries out research ranging from pure nuclear physics to astrophysics and medical physics. In 1990 the SC closed down after 33 years of service.
The Low Energy Ion Ring (LEIR) receives long pulses of lead ions from Linear accelerator 3 (Linac 3) and transforms them into the short, dense bunches suitable for injection to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The LHC uses 592 bunches of ions per beam, so it takes around 10 minutes for LEIR to provide enough for a complete fill.
ATLAS was one of the two LHC experiments involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson in July 2012. It was also designed to search for evidence of theories of particle physics beyond the Standard Model. The experiment is a collaboration involving 6,000 members from more than 250 institutions in 42 countries. Get a unique view on the control room and learn how the detector works and who are the physicist running it.
CERN contributes to medical innovation through its cutting-edge technologies, competences and know-how: these are being used in areas related to medical diagnostics and imaging, therapy, dosimetry, as well as digital technologies for health applications.
