This is a list of past and current experiments at the

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

Super Proton Synchrotron The Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) is a particle accelerator of the synchrotron type at CERN. It is housed in a circular tunnel, in circumference, straddling the border of France and Switzerland near Geneva, Switzerland. History The SPS was d ...

(SPS) facility since its commissioning in 1976. The SPS was used as the main

particle collider In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, fro ...

for many experiments, and has been adapted to various purpose ever since its inception. Four locations were used for experiments, the ''North Area'' (NA experiments), ''West Area'' (WA experiments), ''Underground Area'' (UA experiments), and the ''Endcap MUon'' detectors (EMU experiments). The UA1 and UA2 experiments famously detected the

W and Z bosons In particle physics, the W and Z bosons are vector bosons that are together known as the weak bosons or more generally as the intermediate vector bosons. These elementary particles mediate the weak interaction; the respective symbols are , , an ...

in the early 1980s. Following this, Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer won the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics. The list is first compiled from the INSPIRE-HEP database, then missing information is retrieved from the online version CERN's ''Grey Book''. The most specific information of the two is kept, ''e.g.'' if the INSPIRE database lists ''November 1974'', while the ''Grey Book'' lists ''22 November 1974'', the ''Grey Book'' entry is shown. When there is a conflict between the INSPIRE database and the ''Grey Book'', the INSPIRE database information is listed, unless otherwise noted.

EMU experiments

''EMU = endcap muon''

NA experiments

''NA = north area''

UA experiments

''UA = underground area''

WA experiments

''WA = west area''

References

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External links