Antiproton Decelerator + Data Centre Visit Point

Friday 17 Jul 2026, 16:45 → 18:35 Europe/Zurich

CERN

We announce the second guided visit for the openlab summer students 2026!

The visit will take place on Friday, 17 July, from 16:45 to 18:35, and will give you the opportunity to explore two more CERN’s facilities:

The Antiproton Decelerator (AD) and CERN Data Centre. 

Students will be divided into two groups and follow a parallel schedule to visit both locations. You will meet your guides at the designated meeting points and walk together to the exhibitions.

To attend the visit, please fill out the registration form and select your preferred group. Registration is mandatory for participation.

Meeting point locations:

• Data Centre - building 513 - map 
• AD - in front of building 393 - map 

 

Group A	Group B
Data Centre 16:45 - 17:35	AD 16:45 - 17:35
AD 17:45 - 18:35	Data Centre 17:45 - 18:35

Antiproton Decelerator (AD)

The Antiproton Decelerator (AD) is a unique machine that produces low-energy antiprotons for studies of antimatter, and “creates” antiatoms.

The AD is a ring composed of bending and focussing magnets that keep the antiprotons on the same track, while strong electric fields slow them down. The spread in energy of the antiprotons and their deviation from their track is reduced by a technique known as “cooling”. Antiprotons are subjected to several cycles of cooling and deceleration until they are slowed down to around a tenth of the speed of light.

Currently the AD serve several experiments that are studying antimatter and its properties: AEgIS, ALPHA, ASACUSA, BASE and GBAR. Whereas ATRAP and ACEhave now completed their experiments.

Data Centre Visit Point

The CERN Data Centre is the heart of CERN’s entire scientific, administrative, and computing infrastructure. All services, including email, scientific data management and videoconferencing use equipment based here.

The 450 000 processor cores and 10 000 servers run 24/7. Over 90% of the resources for computing in the Data Centre are provided through a private cloud based on OpenStack, an open-source project to deliver a massively scalable cloud operating system.

Note: this is not an underground visit

This visit is exclusively organized for openlab summer students. 

Please register and choose your group before July 15th midnight!