Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Alas, ATLAS!

Typically, I go to R1 (the main "restaurant" at CERN), grab a table outside and eat lunch midday. Today was a bit different. Instead of going to lunch at 12:30, I went on a tour of the ATLAS detector. ATLAS is the collaboration I am working with at CERN and is the largest particle detector ever made--it measures 25 meters in diameter, 45 meters tall and weighs in at 7,000 tons. This all sounds pretty impressive, and I had seen pictures of it, but nothing could prepare me to actually stand along side it. I had been warned that seeing it in person was even more daunting than you initially pictured, and I have to say, that is definitely true.

There isn't really much to say but that it was the largest thing I have ever seen...and it wasn't even all exposed. We really lucked out though--because the LHC is shut down until 2014, we were able to get a tour actually inside the detector. We were in the very middle of the detector, but the outer layers (like the muon calorimeter) were still further below ground than we could see. It was like walking into a toroidal futuristic spaceship, if that paints any sort of picture in anyone's mind.

Here are some pictures, but as I said, the photos do not do this masterpiece justice.

ATLAS control room

All of us next to the ATLAS toroid


The center of the detector (remember, this is ~150 ft from top to bottom)

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