Super Proton Synchrotron

The Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) is a Particle Accelerator at CERN . Originally specified as a 300 GeV Proton machine, the SPS was actually built to be capable of 400GeV, an operating energy it achieved on the official commissioning date of 17 June 1976 . However, by that time this energy had been exceeded by Fermilab , who reached 500GeV on May 14 of that year.

The SPS was designed by a team led by CERN director-general of what was then known as Laboratory II, Sir John Adams .

The SPS has also been used to accelerate Antiproton s, Electron s and Positron s (for use as the injector for CERN's LEP electron-positron collider) and Heavy Ions . Its finest hour was undoubtedly as a proton-antiproton collider (

Sp\bar{p}S

) from 1981 to 1984 , when its beams provided the data for the UA1 and UA2 experiments, which resulted in the discovery of the W And Z Bosons , earning a Nobel Prize for Carlo Rubbia and Simon Van Der Meer in 1984.

The SPS is now to be used as the final pre-injector for high-intensity proton beams for CERN's Large Hadron Collider , scheduled to begin operation in 2007, accelerating protons from 26GeV to 450GeV. The SPS will also be used to produce a Neutrino stream to be detected at the Italian Gran Sasso laboratory, 730 km from CERN.

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Super Proton Synchrotron