UA1 experiment

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The central section of the UA1 experiment on display at the Microcosm museum at CERN

Interior of the central section of the UA1 experiment on display at the Microcosm museum at CERN

The UA1 experiment was a high-energy physics experiment that ran at CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator-collider from 1981 until 1993. The discovery of the W and Z bosons by this experiment and the UA2 experiment in 1983 led to the Nobel Prize for physics being awarded to Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer in 1984. Peter Kalmus and John Dowell from the UK groups working on the project were jointly awarded the 1988 Rutherford Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics for their outstanding roles in the discovery of the W and Z particles.

It was named as the first experiment in the CERN "Underground Area" (UA), i.e. located underground outside of the two main CERN sites at an interaction point on the underground SPS accelerator which was modified at the same time to convert it into a collider. The UA1 central detector was crucial to understanding the complex topology of proton-antiproton events. It played a most important role in identifying a handful of Ws and Zs among billions of collisions.^[1]

The UA1 was a huge and complex detector for its day. It was designed as a general-purpose detector.^[2] The detector was a 6-chamber cylindrical assembly 5.8 m long and 2.3 m in diameter, the largest imaging drift chamber of its day. It recorded the tracks of charged particles curving in a 0.7 Tesla magnetic field, measuring their momentum, the sign of their electric charge and their rate of energy loss (dE/dx). Atoms in the argon-ethane gas mixture filling the chambers were ionised by the passage of charged particles. The electrons which were released drifted along an electric field shaped by field wires and were collected on sense wires. The geometrical arrangement of the 17000 field wires and 6125 sense wires allowed a spectacular 3-D interactive display of reconstructed physics events to be produced.^[3]

The UA1 (Underground Area 1) detector was conceived and designed in 1978/9, with the proposal submitted in mid-1978.^[4]

References

v t e Super Proton Synchrotron experiments

EMU experiments	EMU1 EMU2 EMU3 EMU4 EMU5 EMU6 EMU7 EMU8 EMU9 EMU10 EMU11 EMU12 EMU13 EMU14 EMU15 EMU16 EMU17 EMU18 EMU19 EMU20

NA experiments	NA1 NA2 NA3 NA4 NA5 NA6 NA7 NA8 NA9 NA10 NA11 NA12/2 NA13 NA14/2 NA15 NA16 NA17 NA18 NA19 NA20 NA21 NA22 NA23 NA24 NA25 NA26 NA27 NA28 NA29 NA30 NA31/2 NA32 NA33 NA34/2/3 NA35 NA36 NA37 NA38 NA39 NA40 NA41 NA42 NA43/2 NA44 NA45/2 NA46 NA47 NA48/1/2/3 NA49 NA50 NA51 NA52 NA53 NA54 NA55 NA56 NA57 NA58 NA59 NA60 NA61 NA62 NA63

UA experiments	UA1 UA2 UA3 UA4/2 UA5/2 UA6 UA7 UA8 UA9

WA experiments	WA1/2 WA2 WA3 WA4 WA5 WA6 WA7 WA8 WA9 WA10 WA11 WA12 WA13 WA14 WA15 WA16 WA17 WA18/2 WA19 WA20 WA21 WA22 WA23 WA24 WA25 WA26 WA27 WA28 WA29 WA30 WA31 WA32 WA33 WA34 WA35 WA36 WA37 WA38 WA39 WA40 WA41 WA42 WA43 WA44 WA45 WA46 WA47 WA48 WA49 WA50 WA51 WA52 WA53 WA54 WA55 WA56 WA57 WA58 WA59 WA60 WA61 WA62 WA63 WA64 WA65 WA66 WA67 WA68 WA69 WA70 WA71 WA72 WA73 WA74 WA75 WA76 WA77 WA78 WA79 WA80 WA81 WA82 WA83 WA84 WA85 WA86 WA87 WA88 WA89 WA90 WA91 WA92 WA93 WA94 WA95 WA96 WA97 WA98 WA99/2 WA100 WA101 WA102 WA103

The-central

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UA1 experiment

See also

References

Further reading