Digging deep at the site of the ATLAS detector

13 December 2000

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When CERN, Europe's centre for research in particle physics, finally shut down its Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider at the beginning of November, 2000, preparations for LEP's successor were already well underway. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be built in the same tunnel that LEP had previously occupied for 12 years, but two new underground caverns are being excavated to house new detectors to study particle collsions at the LHC. This is one of two shafts, 100 m deep, that will allow access to the cavern where the ATLAS detector is to be assembled. When complete, ATLAS will be as big as a five-storey building, but every single component will have had to pass down one of the shafts to the cavern. The LHC is scheduled for completion in 2005, and in the meantime visitors to CERN will have the chance to see the two access shafts for ATLAS, as well as progress at the second new cavern, which will house the CMS detector.

Credit: CERN Photo

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