The Super accelerator in CERN
From 1998 to 2003, Wayss & Freytag carried out the following construction works for the Kernforschungszentrum CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva:
- A huge cavern 100 m below ground to house the ATLAS-Detector, the heart of the super accelerator „LHC“ (Large Hadron Collider), with the aid of which elementary particles shall be accelerated to almost the speed of light in the near future.
- 3 shafts with a diameter of up to 18 m and a depth of up to 65 m.
- Several access and monitoring galleries.
- Several connecting chambers and cryogenic chambers.
- A plant above ground with various buildings, halls, cooling towers and outside facilities.
Scientists hope, among other things, that with the aid of this new plant the smallest particles of an atom, the so-called „Higgs-particles“, which were postulated by the British physicist Peter Higgs in 1964, can finally be verified within the next few years. If the Higgs boson is found, the question of where the elementary particles get their mass can be answered.