CERN70

One year after the discovery of the Higgs boson, François Englert and Peter Higgs are awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for the theoretical prediction they made decades earlier, together with the late Robert Brout, of a new pervasive fundamental field in the Universe. This field, known as the Higgs field, manifests itself through the Higgs boson and gives mass to elementary particles through the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) physics programme starts with proton–proton collisions at the unprecedented collision energy of 7 TeV (3.5 TeV per beam), recorded by the four largest LHC experiments – ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb. Later in the year, lead ions are delivered to the experiments for the first-ever heavy-ion run at the LHC. Since then, the energy of the LHC collisions has constantly increased to achieve a record-energy of 13.6 TeV in 2022.

The Large Electron-Positron (LEP) collider is decommissioned in November. Over its 11 years of operation, from 1989 to 2000, it has produced 17 million Z bosons, uncharged mediators of the weak force, and approximately 40 000 pairs of W bosons, charged mediators of the weak force. The precision measurements conducted at LEP have provided stringent tests of the Standard Model of particle physics, confirming the existence of three generations of fundamental particles and placing the Standard Model on solid experimental ground.

The Antiproton Decelerator (AD) starts delivering low-energy antiprotons to antimatter experiments. This 188-metre-long machine decelerates antiprotons so that they can be trapped by experiments. The aim is to study antimatter in depth to determine any difference compared to ordinary matter. In 2017, a newer deceleration ring, ELENA (Extra Low ENergy Antiproton), is connected to the AD to further reduce the speed of the antiprotons.

The Large Hadron Collider project is approved in December. The successful tests of several superconducting magnets demonstrate the feasibility of this innovative machine. The civil engineering works to build the new service tunnels and experimental caverns start in 1998 and are completed in 2005. The development and production of the LHC components, including the impressive magnet system made of thousands of huge superconducting magnets, starts all over the world.

The Large Electron-Positron collider (LEP) is commissioned in July 1989. With its 27-km circumference, the LEP is the largest accelerator ever built. Fed by CERN’s accelerator complex, it provides particle collisions to four enormous detectors – ALEPH, DELPHI, L3, and OPAL.

Only a year after the discovery of the W and Z bosons, the two key scientists behind it receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. Carlo Rubbia, the instigator of the SPS accelerator’s conversion into a proton-antiproton collider and spokesperson of the UA1 experiment, shares the prize with Simon van der Meer, inventor of the stochastic cooling technique, which is vital to the collider’s operation.

The first beam of protons circulates in the full 7 km of the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) on 3 May. This accelerator has since gone on to become the workhorse of CERN’s particle physics programme. Just a few years later, the SPS is converted into a proton-antiproton collider, leading to the Nobel-Prize-winning discovery of the W and Z particles. In 1989, it begins serving also as an injector for a larger machine, the Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP).

The world’s first collisions between two beams of protons occur in the Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR). During its 13 years of service, the ISR makes important contributions to the understanding of the constituents of the proton and probes the strong nuclear force that links binds quarks and gluons together inside protons and neutrons. It also becomes the first proton-antiproton collider and the first ion collider, enabling CERN to gain unique expertise for its subsequent particle collider projects.

The Isotope Separator On-Line Device (ISOLDE), a nuclear research experiment, comes into service in October. Over the years, ISOLDE has grown to provide beams of atomic nuclei for several dozen experiments annually. Fundamental research at ISOLDE ranges from studies of the structure of atomic nuclei to materials science, radiation protection, life sciences and astrophysics.

A team led by Antonino Zichichi using the Proton Synchrotron at CERN, and a team led by Leon Lederman at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA), simultaneously observe the antideuteron, the antimatter nucleus composed of an antiproton and an antineutron. This discovery is an important step in understanding how antimatter behaves.

The Proton Synchrotron (PS) accelerates protons for the first time on 24 November, at the energy of 24 GeV, briefly becoming the world’s highest–energy particle accelerator. With a circumference of 628 metres, it is CERN’s first big particle accelerator. The PS continues to provide beams for experiments to this day, in addition to being an injector for larger machines.

In 1957, the Synchrocyclotron (SC), a 600 MeV proton accelerator, is CERN’s first accelerator to begin operation, providing beams for the Laboratory’s first experiments from 1958 onwards. In 1967, it begins supplying particles for a dedicated nuclear research facility called ISOLDE.  The SC is decommissioned in 1990.

On 17 May, the first shovel of earth is dug on the Meyrin site in Switzerland, in the presence of Geneva officials and members of CERN staff. Geneva had been selected as the site for the Laboratory, from among four other cities, at the third session of the provisional Council in 1952, following a referendum in the canton of Geneva in 1953.

French physicist Louis de Broglie puts forward the first official proposal for the creation of a European laboratory during the European Cultural Conference held in Lausanne (Switzerland) in December 1949. At the UNESCO Intergovernmental Conference held in Paris in December 1951, the first resolution to create a European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) is adopted. Two months later, eleven countries sign an agreement establishing the provisional CERN Council.