CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research - The Large Hadron Collider

ATLAS

ATLAS is one of two general-purpose detectors at the LHC. It will investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, extra dimensions, and particles that could make up dark matter. ATLAS will record sets of measurements on the particles created in collisions their paths, energies, and their identities.

This is accomplished in ATLAS through six different detecting subsystems that identify particles and measure their momentum and energy. Another vital element of ATLAS is the huge magnet system that bends the paths of charged particles for momentum measurement.

With the same goals in physics as CMS, ATLAS will record similar sets of measurements on the particles created in the collisions – their paths, energies, and their identities. However, the two experiments have adopted radically different technical solutions and designs for their detectors' magnet systems.

The interactions in the ATLAS detectors will create an enormous dataflow. To digest these data, ATLAS needs a very advanced trigger and data acquisition system, and a large computing system.

More than 2900 scientists from 172 institutes in 37 countries work on the ATLAS experiment (December 2009).

ATLAS detector

• Size: 46 m long, 25 m high and 25 m wide. The ATLAS detector is the largest volume particle detector ever constructed.
• Weight: 7000 tonnes
• Design: barrel plus end caps
• Location: Meyrin, Switzerland.