my visit cern

CERN Accelerating science

Find below the answer to frequently asked questions. Should you not find the information you are looking for, do not hesitate to  contact us .

Preparing for your visit

CERN visits are free of charge, whether they are guided tours, exhibitions, labs, science shows or public events. Do not pay any third parties who claim that CERN is charging them.

Only if you take part in a guided tour, as some tours may take place on both sides of the Swiss-French border.

Yes. A paid car park is available next to the Globe of Science and Innovation. The bus parking available before the car park is reserved for groups with a booking. More details on our dedicated page .

No, but CERN can be reached by  public transport  and taxi. CERN is located 5.5km away from Geneva airport and 9.4km from Geneva Cornavin train station. Those arriving at Geneva airport can get bus and tram ticket from the machine in the baggage collection area of the arrivals hall. For further details please click here .

Our Resources menu  provides numerous resources for you to learn more about CERN before your visit.

French and English. Some of the team members also speak other languages.

Accessibility

Yes. There are seating areas in the exhibitions and you can borrow a wheelchair or a folding stool in the reception area upon availability. Click here for more information about accessibility .

While pets are not generally permitted on site, guide dogs for the visually impaired are welcome. Please inform the Reception personnel when you arrive.  Click here for more information about accessibility

Families and individual visitors

Families, individual visitors and small groups (less than 12 visitors) do not require prior booking. Simply show up at Reception, register on out web app, exclusively available on site, and off you go. More information here .

Booking is not required for families and individual visitors. Access to exhibitions, science shows and films (when available) is free within capacity limits. Guided tours and lab workshops can only be booked on site.  A dedicated page explains why .

Group bookings (12 visitors and more)

If the date you want cannot be selected, it means that we cannot take any more groups on this date.

CERN receives twice as many requests as it has places available , so you are advised to book your tour as early as possible. Group (12 visitors and more) booking are opened 9 monts in advance and slots fill up in days.

Some of the places visited on guided tours are a long way from the CERN Reception (up to 15 km away). It is therefore important to organise transport. CERN has a limited number of coaches/minibuses to transport visitors. If you have your own coach/minibus, we will use it during the tour to travel between the visit points. Please make sure that the driver is aware of this and is prepared to drive you. Please note that the use of private cars is not allowed. Only coaches/minibuses (with 20 to 50 seats) are allowed to bring tour parties onto our sites.

You can request for your group to have lunch in one of CERN’s on-site cafeterias at the registration time. This request has to be accepted by CERN Visits service as we have limited capacity. You will be informed quickly of the decision.

If you omitted to request for this option, please contact us and provide your group booking reference number.

If your request has been accepted, and about 2 weeks before your visit, CERN Visits Service will assign you the restaurant and the time which suits the best your programme. You will be informed of the restaurant and the time your group has been assigned to at your arrival at CERN Science Gateway reception.

Please note that it is not possible to change the restaurant nor the time assigned to your group. Refrain from contacting any CERN restaurants' management directly (unless instructed by us).

Cost for a meal in CERN restaurants vary from around 10 CHF to 20 CHF depending on the restaurant and the meal. Payments are possible in cash in CHF and EUR (but change is always returned in CHF) or by most credit/debit cards.

No. As the applicable laws differ from one country to another, CERN is unable to provide a standard risk assessment document. A medical service and fire brigade are based on the Meyrin site, and strict safety rules are in place to protect everyone working at or visiting CERN.

Connect to  http://myguidedtours.cern.ch  with your login, select the request and click on Cancel the visit  in the Other actions menu at the top.

Please submit a request using the contact form , quoting the reference number of your request. This number can be found in the automated e mails that have been sent to you and on the myguidedtours.cern.ch website.

Only if you have requested a guided tour as the visitors will enter the CERN fenced sites.

Once your guided tour request has been approved, you will be given access to a form available on myguidedtours.cern.ch to provide details of all the members of your party (first name, last name, nationality, date and place of birth).

If you have not requested a guided tour, the list of visitors is not required.

Make sure you enter only unaccented Latin characters, as shown in the machine-readable part of your identity document.

No. You can save the form and come back later to enter additional information. All visitors' details must be provided within 48 hours in the case of individual guided tours or at least 21 days before the guided tour in the case of group guided tours, otherwise visitors whose details are incomplete will be removed from the tour booking.

Yes, you are welcome to inform us of any changes, up to one day before the guided tour. No updates are possible on the day before the guided tour as this is when we need to print visitors' cards. You can inform the Reception staff of any last-minute changes when you arrive.

As soon as you arrive at the CERN Reception, please inform us of any last-minute changes. You will be requested to provide details of all visitors whose information has changed or who are not attending. Please note that the time needed to provide this information may reduce the duration of your guided tour. You are therefore advised to inform us of any changes online, up to one day before the guided tour.

No. Only the number of visitors registered on myguidedtours.cern.ch will be allowed to take part in the guided tour. Any visitors who have not been registered may visit the permanent exhibitions during the guided tour.

This information is not mandatory before your arrival, but you will have to provide it when you arrive at the CERN Reception at the latest. Make sure that you have this information with you.

No. The CERN logo is the property of CERN, and its use on any item produced by an external organisation is not permitted under any circumstances, including in the context of a school visit. However, the use of phrases such as “Visit to CERN, Geneva, Switzerland” is acceptable.

Yes, but availability is limited. School groups visiting CERN may apply to stay in the CERN hostel if all the members of the group are at least 16 years of age and have already been registered for a guided tour by the Visits Service. Teachers will be responsible for the group throughout the stay and must remain in the hostel with the pupils at all times. One teacher is required for every 10 pupils. Bookings cannot be made more than 90 days in advance of the tour and are limited to a maximum of three nights. Please note that no bookings are possible in June, July, August or September.

For all hostel bookings, please contact: CERN Hostel once your guided tour has been confirmed by the Visits Service.

Many school groups use the Geneva youth hostel . You can also find hotels nearby on Google Maps .

On-site services

Yes, CERN provides 321 lockers for free. Luggage is not permitted in our premises. All lockers must be emptied at 17.30 at the latest. A limited number of lockers can contain up to cabin-size luggage. Larger items are not allowed at CERN. We invite you to leave larger items in your coach or at your hotel. Luggage storage facilities are also available at Geneva airport and the  Cornavin train station .

Yes. The Big Bang Café welcomes you from 08.00 to 17.00. Selected groups with a booking will also be allowed to access the CERN restaurants inside fenced domain.

Yes. Free public Wi-Fi is available in and around CERN’s main buildings. Connect to CERN-Visitors Wi-Fi, and open a web browser to access our exclusive web app to register and get access to CERN Science Gateway. Should you need to access Internet, you will have to register your phone fully with a code.

Yes, the souvenir shop in the Reception area sells books, educational items, games, clothes and gifts. More information can be found here . Please note that the shop and reception close at 18:00, so set aside enough time for your shopping.

Depending on the restaurant assigned and menu chosen, a lunch cost between 15 CHF and 30 CHF. Swiss franc and euro banknotes are accepted. Change is always given in Swiss francs. CERN Restaurants accept all major credit and debit cards.

Not publicly accessible. Only groups granted restaurant access will be able to use the ATMs inside the fenced part of the site. The CERN shop accepts most credits cards .

Yes, most cards are accepted . You can also pay in cash using Swiss francs or euro notes. However, change is given in Swiss francs only.

Exhibitions

Yes, like all outreach activities at CERN, exhibitions are accessible free of charge.

Only if you are a group (12 visitors and more). Group bookings are available here .

For individual visitors, families and small groups, an onsite registration on our web app exclusively accessible onsite is the only registration needed to access freely the exhibitions and other activies. See more here .

The exhibition welcomes visitors of all ages, although it is best enjoyed by ages 8+.

The exhibitions are designed to be self-visited. But guides, recognisable with their red jacket, will be present in exhibiitions should you have a question. Don’t hesitate ask them.

Guided tours

Tours are conducted exclusively by members or former members of the CERN personnel, who give tours on a voluntary basis.

Tours last between one and a half hour (tours for individuals and families) and up to three hours (tours for groups). It is not possible to leave a tour before it ends.

Underground tours are extremely rare and limited to smaller groups. The LHC tunnel is never accessible to visitors. Only the experiment caverns can be visited during LHC shutdowns. But there are plenty of interesting places to visit above ground! The final tour programme is decided at the last minute to take operational and safety constraints into account and cannot be confirmed in advance.

Find our more on our dedicated page .

Yes, CERN has no secrets and you can photograph or film anything you wish throughout your visit, as long as you do not violate the privacy rights of individuals.

CERN Accelerating science

Scroll down to discover what CERN Science Gateway has to offer !

Science shows

Meet our guides: dominique, exhibitions, quantum world, our universe, discover cern, more activities.

Depending on the day's programme

Lab workshops

Guided tours, plan your visit, getting here, opening hours, accessibility, public events.

Public events at CERN are organised with the support of the CERN & Society Foundation

CineGlobe 2024 - Opening night: Universe in a Grain of Sand

Cineglobe 2024 - cinéma improv, cineglobe 2024 - table ronde : ce que l’art amène à la science, cineglobe 2024 - immersive art-science night, cineglobe 2024 - awards ceremony, cern70 public event: cern - an extraordinary human endeavour, cern70 public event: the case of the (still) mysterious universe, cern70 public event: exploring farther - machines for new knowledge, cern70 official ceremony: inspiring the future.

The CERN Science Gateway project is made possible thanks to the generous support of its donors. Click below to discover them all.

CERN Accelerating science

Find below the answer to frequently asked questions. Should you not find the information you are looking for, do not hesitate to  contact us .

Preparing for your visit

CERN visits are free of charge, whether they are guided tours, exhibitions, labs, science shows or public events. Do not pay any third parties who claim that CERN is charging them.

Only if you take part in a guided tour, as some tours may take place on both sides of the Swiss-French border.

Yes. A paid car park is available next to the Globe of Science and Innovation. The bus parking available before the car park is reserved for groups with a booking. More details on our dedicated page .

No, but CERN can be reached by  public transport  and taxi. CERN is located 5.5km away from Geneva airport and 9.4km from Geneva Cornavin train station. Those arriving at Geneva airport can get bus and tram ticket from the machine in the baggage collection area of the arrivals hall. For further details please click here .

Our Resources menu  provides numerous resources for you to learn more about CERN before your visit.

French and English. Some of the team members also speak other languages.

Accessibility

Yes. There are seating areas in the exhibitions and you can borrow a wheelchair or a folding stool in the reception area upon availability. Click here for more information about accessibility .

While pets are not generally permitted on site, guide dogs for the visually impaired are welcome. Please inform the Reception personnel when you arrive.  Click here for more information about accessibility

Families and individual visitors

Families, individual visitors and small groups (less than 12 visitors) do not require prior booking. Simply show up at Reception, register on out web app, exclusively available on site, and off you go. More information here .

Booking is not required for families and individual visitors. Access to exhibitions, science shows and films (when available) is free within capacity limits. Guided tours and lab workshops can only be booked on site.  A dedicated page explains why .

Group bookings (12 visitors and more)

If the date you want cannot be selected, it means that we cannot take any more groups on this date.

CERN receives twice as many requests as it has places available , so you are advised to book your tour as early as possible. Group (12 visitors and more) booking are opened 9 monts in advance and slots fill up in days.

Some of the places visited on guided tours are a long way from the CERN Reception (up to 15 km away). It is therefore important to organise transport. CERN has a limited number of coaches/minibuses to transport visitors. If you have your own coach/minibus, we will use it during the tour to travel between the visit points. Please make sure that the driver is aware of this and is prepared to drive you. Please note that the use of private cars is not allowed. Only coaches/minibuses (with 20 to 50 seats) are allowed to bring tour parties onto our sites.

You can request for your group to have lunch in one of CERN’s on-site cafeterias at the registration time. This request has to be accepted by CERN Visits service as we have limited capacity. You will be informed quickly of the decision.

If you omitted to request for this option, please contact us and provide your group booking reference number.

If your request has been accepted, and about 2 weeks before your visit, CERN Visits Service will assign you the restaurant and the time which suits the best your programme. You will be informed of the restaurant and the time your group has been assigned to at your arrival at CERN Science Gateway reception.

Please note that it is not possible to change the restaurant nor the time assigned to your group. Refrain from contacting any CERN restaurants' management directly (unless instructed by us).

Cost for a meal in CERN restaurants vary from around 10 CHF to 20 CHF depending on the restaurant and the meal. Payments are possible in cash in CHF and EUR (but change is always returned in CHF) or by most credit/debit cards.

No. As the applicable laws differ from one country to another, CERN is unable to provide a standard risk assessment document. A medical service and fire brigade are based on the Meyrin site, and strict safety rules are in place to protect everyone working at or visiting CERN.

Connect to  http://myguidedtours.cern.ch  with your login, select the request and click on Cancel the visit  in the Other actions menu at the top.

Please submit a request using the contact form , quoting the reference number of your request. This number can be found in the automated e mails that have been sent to you and on the myguidedtours.cern.ch website.

Only if you have requested a guided tour as the visitors will enter the CERN fenced sites.

Once your guided tour request has been approved, you will be given access to a form available on myguidedtours.cern.ch to provide details of all the members of your party (first name, last name, nationality, date and place of birth).

If you have not requested a guided tour, the list of visitors is not required.

Make sure you enter only unaccented Latin characters, as shown in the machine-readable part of your identity document.

No. You can save the form and come back later to enter additional information. All visitors' details must be provided within 48 hours in the case of individual guided tours or at least 21 days before the guided tour in the case of group guided tours, otherwise visitors whose details are incomplete will be removed from the tour booking.

Yes, you are welcome to inform us of any changes, up to one day before the guided tour. No updates are possible on the day before the guided tour as this is when we need to print visitors' cards. You can inform the Reception staff of any last-minute changes when you arrive.

As soon as you arrive at the CERN Reception, please inform us of any last-minute changes. You will be requested to provide details of all visitors whose information has changed or who are not attending. Please note that the time needed to provide this information may reduce the duration of your guided tour. You are therefore advised to inform us of any changes online, up to one day before the guided tour.

No. Only the number of visitors registered on myguidedtours.cern.ch will be allowed to take part in the guided tour. Any visitors who have not been registered may visit the permanent exhibitions during the guided tour.

This information is not mandatory before your arrival, but you will have to provide it when you arrive at the CERN Reception at the latest. Make sure that you have this information with you.

No. The CERN logo is the property of CERN, and its use on any item produced by an external organisation is not permitted under any circumstances, including in the context of a school visit. However, the use of phrases such as “Visit to CERN, Geneva, Switzerland” is acceptable.

Yes, but availability is limited. School groups visiting CERN may apply to stay in the CERN hostel if all the members of the group are at least 16 years of age and have already been registered for a guided tour by the Visits Service. Teachers will be responsible for the group throughout the stay and must remain in the hostel with the pupils at all times. One teacher is required for every 10 pupils. Bookings cannot be made more than 90 days in advance of the tour and are limited to a maximum of three nights. Please note that no bookings are possible in June, July, August or September.

For all hostel bookings, please contact: CERN Hostel once your guided tour has been confirmed by the Visits Service.

Many school groups use the Geneva youth hostel . You can also find hotels nearby on Google Maps .

On-site services

Yes, CERN provides 321 lockers for free. Luggage is not permitted in our premises. All lockers must be emptied at 17.30 at the latest. A limited number of lockers can contain up to cabin-size luggage. Larger items are not allowed at CERN. We invite you to leave larger items in your coach or at your hotel. Luggage storage facilities are also available at Geneva airport and the  Cornavin train station .

Yes. The Big Bang Café welcomes you from 08.00 to 17.00. Selected groups with a booking will also be allowed to access the CERN restaurants inside fenced domain.

Yes. Free public Wi-Fi is available in and around CERN’s main buildings. Connect to CERN-Visitors Wi-Fi, and open a web browser to access our exclusive web app to register and get access to CERN Science Gateway. Should you need to access Internet, you will have to register your phone fully with a code.

Yes, the souvenir shop in the Reception area sells books, educational items, games, clothes and gifts. More information can be found here . Please note that the shop and reception close at 18:00, so set aside enough time for your shopping.

Depending on the restaurant assigned and menu chosen, a lunch cost between 15 CHF and 30 CHF. Swiss franc and euro banknotes are accepted. Change is always given in Swiss francs. CERN Restaurants accept all major credit and debit cards.

Not publicly accessible. Only groups granted restaurant access will be able to use the ATMs inside the fenced part of the site. The CERN shop accepts most credits cards .

Yes, most cards are accepted . You can also pay in cash using Swiss francs or euro notes. However, change is given in Swiss francs only.

Exhibitions

Yes, like all outreach activities at CERN, exhibitions are accessible free of charge.

Only if you are a group (12 visitors and more). Group bookings are available here .

For individual visitors, families and small groups, an onsite registration on our web app exclusively accessible onsite is the only registration needed to access freely the exhibitions and other activies. See more here .

The exhibition welcomes visitors of all ages, although it is best enjoyed by ages 8+.

The exhibitions are designed to be self-visited. But guides, recognisable with their red jacket, will be present in exhibiitions should you have a question. Don’t hesitate ask them.

Guided tours

Tours are conducted exclusively by members or former members of the CERN personnel, who give tours on a voluntary basis.

Tours last between one and a half hour (tours for individuals and families) and up to three hours (tours for groups). It is not possible to leave a tour before it ends.

Underground tours are extremely rare and limited to smaller groups. The LHC tunnel is never accessible to visitors. Only the experiment caverns can be visited during LHC shutdowns. But there are plenty of interesting places to visit above ground! The final tour programme is decided at the last minute to take operational and safety constraints into account and cannot be confirmed in advance.

Find our more on our dedicated page .

Yes, CERN has no secrets and you can photograph or film anything you wish throughout your visit, as long as you do not violate the privacy rights of individuals.

Is This the Nerdiest Thing You Can Do in Switzerland?

Cern, the nuclear physics science center where the world wide web was invented and the higgs boson was discovered, is open to the public for free. and it’s awesome..

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The Globe of Science and Innovation houses an exhibition, and the ribbon-like steel sculpture in front is laser-cut with 396 great physics discoveries through the ages.

Photo by Billie Cohen

Switzerland is known to travelers for many good reasons: chocolate, cheese, mountains, lakes. But “world’s largest particle physics laboratory” isn’t really at the top of their minds. Nor is the fact that they can visit that lab for free, just 25 minutes outside of Geneva. In fact, I’d argue that a visit to CERN is one of the coolest—and, admittedly, nerdiest—things you can do in Switzerland.

What is CERN?

CERN ( Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire in French, or European Council for Nuclear Research) is an internationally run science center that straddles the border of Switzerland and France.

This place is a pretty big deal: It’s where the world wide web was invented in 1989, where antimatter was discovered, and where the so-called God particle (aka the Higgs boson) was identified in 2012, validating scientists’ model for how the subatomic world works. As a result, a lot of what we know about atoms and the universe—and I guess, cat memes—can be attributed to the work done here.

For nerds of various stripes, this is all major—as is the fact that CERN’s campus is the home of the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator, a 16.8-mile underground track where the world’s most brilliant minds smash tiny, speeding particles together to see what they can learn.

“What astronomers do with telescopes, we do with particle detectors,” said CERN’s head of media relations, Arnaud Marsollier, in a webinar last week. “When we look at the universe, we understand only 5 percent of it. The other 95 percent, which is dark matter or dark energy, we don’t know what it is. We know it’s there’s—we have proof of that—but we don’t know what it is. So this is exactly why we are experimenting further.”

CERN is also a rare example of successful international collaboration: A group of 23 member states manage CERN today , and more than 12,000 scientists from 110 countries use the facilities and research developed here.

The Large Hadron Collider is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built; it’s made of a 27-kilometer-long ring of superconducting magnets in a tunnel 100 meters underground at CERN.

Courtesy of CERN

What kind of nuclear research is going on here?

The word nuclear in CERN’s title doesn’t have to do with nuclear warheads or weaponry at all. In fact, CERN was founded after World War II by a consortium of European countries with the mission to bring scientists together to use their intelligence for peace rather than bombs. As CERN’s convention states : “The Organization shall have no concern with work for military requirements and the results of its experimental and theoretical work shall be published or otherwise made generally available.”

So why is the word nuclear in CERN’s title then? Because at the time of CERN’s founding, physics research was focused on understanding the inside of atoms—or the nucleus—and it was called “nuclear.” Today, that area of study is known as particle research. CERN develops technologies in three areas: particle accelerators, particle detectors, and computing. And the scientists here aim to answer questions including:

• What is the unknown 95 percent of the mass and energy of the universe?
• Why is gravity so weak compared to other forces?
• Why is the universe made only of matter, with hardly any antimatter?
• Is there only one Higgs boson, and does it behave exactly as expected?

In the process, their efforts have concrete, real-world applications for daily life. For example, accelerator technologies are used in cancer radiotherapy, and other tech helps with innovations in 3D color X-ray imaging and PET-scan imaging and diagnostics.

Is it safe to visit? Yes. However, over the years, some have raised concerns about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) creating microscopic black holes (it can’t) or emitting cosmic rays. So the center’s website offers detailed explanations to assuage any fears, explaining, for example, “The Universe as a whole conducts more than 10 million million LHC-like experiments per second. The possibility of any dangerous consequences contradicts what astronomers see—stars and galaxies still exist.”

Renzo Piano designed CERN’s new Science Gateway; its tubular structure references the track of the Large Hadron Collider, and the forest planted around it suggests the connection between science and nature.

What can visitors can do and see at CERN?

The most innovative thing about this manicured, sprawling science mini-town is that everything the scientists do here is completely public. All of their research is accessible to everyone—and so is the campus. Free guided tours are offered in English and French and led by CERN staffers, such as physicists, engineers, and technicians. On the tours, guests can view the facility’s first particle accelerator, the synchrocyclotron, installed in 1957, and also peep into the control room that oversees the ATLAS experiment, which helped identify the Higgs boson in 2012. When I visited, my tour guide proudly stated, “Nothing is hidden.”

This month, CERN added another way for the public to engage with its work: a new exhibition and education center, dubbed the Science Gateway , designed by starchitect Renzo Piano. (He’s also responsible for New York’s new Whitney Museum, Paris’s Centre Pompidou, London’s Shard, and another Swiss beauty, the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern.)

“This will be a place where people meet: kids, students, adults, teachers and scientists, everybody attracted by the exploration of the Universe, from the infinitely vast to the infinitely small. It is a bridge, in both a metaphorical and a real sense. This building is fed by the energy of the Sun, landed in the middle of a newly grown forest,” Piano said in a press release about the opening.

On the outside, the building looks like two parallel tubes connected by a bridge—a nod to CERN’s accelerators—and is carbon neutral, thanks to 4,000 square meters of solar panels. More than 400 trees were also planted around it, creating the effect that it’s floating above a forest.

Inside, the Science Gateway has three exhibitions (Discover CERN, Out Universe, and Quantum World), and it hosts science shows in a theater and hands-on workshops (for school groups as well as for individual visitors). There are also public events, like the upcoming Dark Matter Day with a talk by Nobel Prize–winning astronomer Michel Mayor (November 3) and a live performance of The Infinite Monkey Cage podcast featuring physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince (January 12).

Visitors can see CERN’s first particle accelerator, the synchrocyclotron, installed back in 1957.

How to visit

CERN is a 25-minute tram ride from Geneva’s city center, and some hotels may even offer free transport cards.

The Science Gateway ‘s exhibitions are open Tuesday–Sunday 9 a.m.–5 p.m. (reception opens at 8 a.m.). Tours can be booked at the Science Gateway on a first-come, first-served basis.

Visiting CERN – 11 Tips That Will Help You Make the Most of the Hadron Collider Tour

• By Traveling Anne
• February 28, 2024
• In Europe Travel Destinations

As promised in my French Alps trip report , here's a more detailed review of our excellent visit to CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. There are several tips I want to share as well, about what we did right and what we could have done better.  Read through if you are thinking of visiting CERN so you can make the most of your time there.

What is CERN all about?

You may occasionally see the name Cern, not as an acronym. It's not the name of a town or a village though. Rather, it's an acronym for a long title in French:  Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire.  Which translates into: The European council for nuclear research. I will be using CERN and Cern interchangeably throughout this post because these days it's both a place and a concept.

The council was established back in 1954 in an effort to promote scientific collaboration between the nations of Europe, at the time still licking their proverbial and literal wounds of the second world war. They were allocated an area near Geneva where the CERN project was established on (and under) the ground. The name of the initiative has since changed into the  European Organization for Nuclear Research but it's still known as Cern (and not as EONR, thankfully).

There have been many amazing discoveries made in CERN over the years, some of which have lead to nobel prizes in physics and chemistry. It is best known for its huge particle collider, aka the Hadron Collider.

There are several underground looped tunnels where sub-atomic particles are accelerated in phases and then enter the largest loop of all: the Hadron collider. Beams of particles are made to smash into one another at specific stations within the collider and the results are recorded to be further analyzed by scientists across the globe. It really is an amazing feat of human ingenuity. That makes visiting CERN an uplifting experience for all, not just science buffs.

Visiting CERN: Can you actually visit the Hadron Collider?

Yes and no. You can visit Cern and be above the collider. The main road which runs through the main complex that surrounds the main research station - known as The Atlas Project - is open to the public. There is a visitors center there which includes two permanent exhibitions -

Microcosm - The story of collider and how it works, as well as a little bit about what life in Cern is for the 10,000+ scientists and engineers who work there.

In addition to the exhibitions, there is a guided tour that takes you "behind the scenes". I have seen photos of people wearing helmets and looking at what appears to be part of the collider. During our own visit, the guide explained that they do not take visitors down to the collider because the levels of radiation there are not safe.

So, no, we did not get to see the actual collider. We did get to see several models and hear a LOT about it. Considering its actual size (about 27 kilometers long!) I don't see how you can actually "see" more than a very small part of it going underground. Either way, you can't see it "working". According to our guide (who was also a physicist and a shift leader at Cern) there's not much to be seen. The particle beam is silent and invisible.

Who should be visiting CERN?

Cern is a must-visit for anyone who loves science and specifically physics. The exhibitions are thorough and our guide was a professional physicist who could answer all of the questions thrown at him by our group's science buffs.

Even if you're not into physics, I think the tour would be enjoyable. The exhibitions are interactive and exciting and there is something very moving about the entire project: European nations working together to promote science and peace.

And finally...

11 quick tips that will help you make the most of your visit

1. book the tour.

The tour is entirely free and it gets you that unique "behind the scenes" look into the project. Our guide was fascinating and it was really cool to walk past these gates:

The tour also takes you to a special exhibition with a 20 minutes long multimedia show projected on the walls and on the equipment around you. Really cool and great fun for kids.

2. Guided tours fill up really fast

They open up for registration 15 days ahead of the date, in the morning (Switzerland time) and as far as I could see, registration closes within a couple of hours. They re-open three days ahead of the date for latecomers and I guess if there are no-shows, you can try and wriggle your way into a group.

3. Be prepared to take pictures on the guided tour

With all the fences and guards, we thought they may ask us not to take pictures. Quite the opposite. Our guide said they want us to take as many pictures as possible! Keep your camera ready during the tour because photo-ops pop up literally as you walk around while visiting CERN. Like taking pictures of street signs -

4. Be prepared for a long visit

This isn't a place you can run through in 20 minutes. The exhibitions alone are well-worth 1-2 hours (possibly longer if you are interested in physics). The tour takes up another two hours of your time. All in all, three hours is the bare minimum. We spent five hours at Cern and could have stayed for longer if we had more time.

5. Check for opening hours

There are different opening hours for the exhibitions. The visitors center and the Microcosm exhibition open at 8:30. The Universe Of Particles opens at 10. There are several time slots for the guided tours. Check your times and make sure you allocate at least an hour for each exhibition and 2 hours for the tour (including showing up 15 minutes in advance to get your badges). The good news is that everything is close-by, so it only takes a couple of minutes to get from one exhibition to the other.

6. Bring your own food

Google maps knows of a couple of cafeterias at Cern which we had planned on checking out. Nothing quite like enjoying a croissant while rubbing shoulders with a local version of Sheldon Cooper, right? I thought this would add to our "Visiting CERN" experience.

As it happens, these cafeterias are out of bounds for us mere mortals. The only way to get a coffee or any food is at the local gas station. It's very close to the visitors center, so not a long walk, but the prices are quite Swiss (i.e. expensive!) and the food quality is nothing to write home about - basically what you'd expect to find in a gas station store. They do have a really cool espresso machine that generates so much steam while making your coffee, you might think they're running it through the Hadron collider itself!

7. Eat and drink before the tour

If you didn't bring anything to eat, grab something - anything - at that gas station. The tour isn't short and you can't eat or drink anywhere during the tour. You also can't leave the tour once you started because you have to be accompanied by the guide when inside Cern. So -especially if you're traveling with kids - make sure everyone is well fed before you start the tour.

8. Wear comfortable shoes and dress according to the weather

The guided tour has you walking about one mile on foot. Not too bad but enough to be more enjoyable with comfortable shoes. You will be walking outside for a short bit as well, so if it looks like it might rain, gear up accordingly.

9. Park near the big dome

There's plenty of parking, or at least there was on the day of our visit, but you can't just park anywhere. The best place for you to park would be next to the big brown dome. Just east of the dome, towards the Swiss side of Cern, there is a big parking lot that's free to park at.

10. Watch a movie about the project before visiting CERN

I wanted to get our kids acquainted with Cern before we came and to be honest, I didn't know a whole lot about it other than that's where they had recently discovered the Boson-Higgs and that people were afraid they might create a black hole in the process, swallowing up the entire earth (which turned up to be a slight exaggeration).

The movie we watched was available on Netflix. It's called "Particle Fever" and you can buy or rent it on Amazon too .

11. Don't worry about the language barrier

Cern is technically in both Switzerland and France (the border runs in the middle) but everyone there speaks English. More importantly, the exhibitions all have English labels or English narration options and the guided tour is available in English. That's not something you typically find in French science (or other) museums so it's worth mentioning here.

And one last tip...

12. Have fun!

Visiting CERN is fun! There's a lot of humor to be found in the exhibitions. Lots of red buttons to push and see whether you actually create a black hole that can swallow up the entire earth. It hasn't happened to us but who knows, you might just get lucky!

Have you ever visited Cern? Got any tips to add? Please share those in the comments section below. You can also leave me questions about visiting CERN and I'll try and give you the best answer I can.

Awesome tips i will give 5 out of 5 stars for these tips i totally loved it.❤

Thank you so much, Asher!

Is it possible to use photo in the chapter 3? I am writing a post for students and schoolchildren and I need photo like that.

Check your email 🙂 I sent you an email with a couple of questions so we can take it from there.

Thanks for the info. Our rental auto does not permit us to drive into Switzerland. Do you know if there is ample free car parking on the French side and we can just walk 5 minutes to Reception?

Hi Paul, I couldn’t find the answer on their website so I emailed Francois Briard, head of CERN’s Visits center who has visited and commented on this post before 🙂 He was very prompt and helpful but unfortunately the answer is that there is no available parking space on the French side that’s within walking distance from the visitors center. He added that you shouldn’t count on parking by the side of the road because French commuters have these filled up by 8AM. His suggestion was to get bus Y line from Saint-Genis-Pouilly and that can drop you at the CERN bus stop. I hope this helps! Enjoy your visit to CERN!

Thanks for the very accurate and useful tips! Our website has been rebranded a bit giving even more information.

François, head of CERN’s Visits Service 😉

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment, François! I’m glad you liked my post!

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CERN Accelerating science

Collaboration Site | Physics Results

ATLAS Visits

How to visit in person.

To schedule an onsite visit to the ATLAS experiment, please contact the CERN Visits Service .

The ATLAS Visitor Center has a permanent exhibit with interactive screens outside the Control Room and a 3D movie which explains how the detector works and why the collaboration pursues its quest for fundamental knowledge. CERN also has two permanent exhibitions Universe of Particles and Microcosm that provide unique experiences in understanding the secrets of matter and exploring the mysteries in our universe.

ATLAS Virtual Visits

How to visit remotely.

An ATLAS Virtual Visit connects a classroom, exhibition or other public venues with scientists at the experiment using web-based video conferencing. It is a chance for you to have a conversation with the scientists working on ATLAS.

Group Visits

For groups of at least 10 visitors, you can schedule a Virtual Visit by completing this form.

Open Visits

We also schedule periodic visits for individuals or small groups to join. You can see a list of upcoming Open Virtual Visits here . Select the one you want and register.

ATLAS Virtual Tours

Explore atlas virtually.

Take a virtual tour around the ATLAS detector in the cavern, located around 80 meters below ground at interaction point 1 of the LHC. Alternatively, walk around the detector and control room using Google's street view .

CERN Accelerating science

• how do i visit cern

How do I visit CERN?

CERN has a rich educational and cultural programme. As an integral part of this programme, tours of the Laboratory are free of charge.

Find out more about CERN tours via visit.cern , which includes frequently asked questions about CERN tours .

How to get to CERN .

Preparing for your CERN visit

Will CERN generate a black hole?

Facts and figures about the lhc, high-luminosity lhc.

CERN Accelerating science

Language switcher, guided tours for individuals (less than 12 people), come and discover an emblematic site at cern in a visit led by our official guides. mandatory registration onsite..

Every year, CERN welcomes almost 100 000 visitors from all over the world, who come to learn about its installations from our official guides. Guided tours of CERN are free of charge.

The meeting point for tours is the CERN Reception How to get to CERN

Mandatory registration at the main desk, upon availability and maximum 2 hours in advance. No online registration.

https://visit.cern/guided-tours-individuals

Offres similaires

Virtual tours and talks, lab workshops, public events at science gateway campus.

Toutes les offres

CERN Accelerating science

CERN and the Higgs boson

What is the brout-englert-higgs mechanism.

The Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism (BEH mechanism) describes how fundamental particles get mass. In this theory, developed independently by Robert Brout and François Englert in Belgium and Peter Higgs in the United Kingdom in 1964, fundamental particles acquire mass by interacting with a “field” that permeates the entire Universe. The more strongly the particles interact with the field, the more massive they are.

On the other hand, particles that do not interact with this field do not have mass - for example, the photon. This mechanism is a corner stone of the Standard Model, the theory that describes the elementary particles and forces. Later in 1964, the Americans Gerald Guralnik and Carl Hagen with their British colleague Tom Kibble further contributed to the development of this new idea.

What is the Higgs boson?

The Higgs boson is the quantum particle associated with the Higgs field. Since the field cannot be observed directly, experiments have searched for the particle, whose discovery would prove the existence of the field and confirm the theory.

On 4 July 2012, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations announced the observation of a particle consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson. The analyses performed since then by the two collaborations have confirmed that the particle discovered has the characteristics of the boson described by the theory.

Why is this so important?

At the beginning of the 1970s, physicists realized that there are very close ties between two of the four fundamental forces – the weak force and the electromagnetic force. These two forces can be described within the same unified theory, which forms the basis of the Standard Model. The basic equations of the unified theory correctly describe the two forces in terms of a single electroweak force and its associated force-carrying particles, namely the photon, and the W and Z bosons - except that all of the particles emerge without a mass. While this is true for the photon, we know that the W and Z have large masses, nearly 100 times that of a proton. The Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism solves this problem by giving a mass to the W and Z bosons. At the same time, within the Standard Model, it also gives masses to other fundamental particles, such as the electron and the quarks.

Is the Higgs mechanism responsible for the mass that is familiar to us?

The Higgs field gives mass only to elementary particles such as electrons and quarks. Quarks form the protons and neutrons in atomic nuclei. Most of the mass of the matter that surrounds - and includes - us comes from these composite protons and neutrons. The quarks inside them account for only a tiny part of their mass, which mainly comes from the strong nuclear force that binds the quarks together. However, without the Higgs field, the Universe would not be the one we know. The elementary particles, such as electrons, would travel at the speed of light, as photons do. They could not be organized into more complex structure like atoms and molecules - and we would not exist.

How long has CERN been looking for the Higgs boson?

The search for the Higgs boson at CERN began in earnest in the late 1980s, with the Large Electron-Positron (LEP) collider, which occupied the tunnel that now houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The experiments at the Tevatron collider at Fermilab in the US also began searching for the Higgs boson in the 1990s. The big difficulty initially was that theory did not predict the mass of the particle and it was possible that it could be found anywhere in a wide range of mass. LEP was shut down in 2000 to make way for the LHC and the LHC experiments took up the search again in 2010.

Is this the end of the quest?

Finding the Higgs boson is not the end of the story; the physicists have to study this particle in detail to measure its properties. Furthermore, many questions remain unanswered. For instance, what is the nature of dark matter, which makes up a large part of the Universe? Why is there far more matter than antimatter in the Universe, when both have been created in equal quantities at the beginning of the Universe? And many other questions...

Were any previous Nobel prizes awarded for work performed at CERN?

Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer won the Nobel prize in physics in 1984 “for their decisive contributions to the large project, which led to the discovery of the field particles W and Z, communicators of weak interaction.”

Georges Charpak won the Nobel prize in physics in 1992 “for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber”. The particle detectors developed by Charpak revolutionized experimental particle physics by increasing considerably the volume of data that can be recorded by detectors.

Will CERN generate a black hole?

The LHC will not generate black holes in the cosmological sense. However, some theories suggest that the formation of tiny 'quantum' black holes may be possible. The observation of such an event would be thrilling in terms of our understanding of the Universe; and would be perfectly safe. More information is available  here .

Why do physicists mention “five sigma” in their results?

When a new particle physics discovery is made, you may have heard the term “sigma” being used. What does this mean? Why is it so important to talk about sigma when making a claim for a new particle discovery? And why is five sigma in particular so important?

Why does particle physics rely on statistics?

Particles produced in collisions in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are tiny and extremely short-lived. Because they almost immediately decay into further particles, it is impossible for physicists to directly “see” them. Instead, they look at the properties of the final particles, such as their charge, mass, spin and velocity. They work like detectives: the end products provide clues to the possible transformations that the particles underwent as they decayed. The probabilities of these so-called “decay channels” are predicted by theory.

In the LHC, millions of particle collisions per second are tracked by the detectors and filtered through trigger systems to identify decays of rare particles. Scientists then analyse the filtered data to look for anomalies, which can indicate new physics.

As with any experiment, there is always a chance of error. Background noise can cause natural fluctuations in the data resulting in statistical error. There is also potential for error if there isn’t enough data, or systematic error caused by faulty equipment or small mistakes in calculations. Scientists look for ways to reduce the impact of these errors to ensure that the claims they make are as accurate as possible.

What is statistical significance?

Imagine rolling a standard die. There is a one in six probability of getting one number. Now imagine rolling two dice – the probability of getting a certain total number varies – there is only one way to roll a two, and six different ways to roll a seven. If you were to roll two dice many, many times and record your results, the shape of the graph would follow a bell-curve known as a normal distribution.

The normal distribution has some interesting properties. It is symmetrical, its peak is called the mean and the data spread is measured using standard deviation. For data that follows a normal distribution, the probability of a data point being within one standard deviation of the mean value is 68%, within two is 95%, within three is even higher.

Standard deviation is represented by the Greek letter σ, or sigma. Measured by numbers of standard deviations from the mean, statistical significance is how far away a certain data point lies from its expected value.

What has this got to do with physics?

When scientists record data from the LHC, it is natural that there are small bumps and statistical fluctuations, but these are generally close to the expected value. There is an indication of a new result when there is a larger anomaly. At which point can this anomaly be classified as a new phenomenon?  Scientists use statistics to find this out.

Imagine the dice metaphor again. Except this time, you are rolling one die, but you do not know if it is weighted. You roll it once and get a three. There is nothing particularly significant about this – there was a one in six chance of your result – you need more data to determine if it is weighted. You roll it twice, three times, or even more, and every time it lands on a three. At what point can you confirm it is weighted?

There isn’t a particular rule for this, but after around eight times of getting the same number, you’d be pretty certain that it was. The chance of this happening as a fluke is only (1/6) 8 = 0.00006%.

In the same way, this is how physicists determine if an anomaly is indeed a result. With more and more data, the likelihood of a statistical fluctuation at a specific point gets smaller and smaller. In the case of the Higgs boson , physicists needed enough data for the statistical significance to pass the threshold of five sigma. Only then could they announce the discovery of “a Higgs-like particle.”

What does it mean when physicists say data has a statistical significance of five sigma?

A result that has a statistical significance of five sigma means the almost certain likelihood that a bump in the data is caused by a new phenomenon, rather than a statistical fluctuation. Scientists calculate this by measuring the signal against the expected fluctuations in the background noise across the whole range. For some results, whose anomalies could lie in either direction above or below the expected value, a significance of five sigma is the 0.00006% chance the data is fluctuation. For other results, like the Higgs boson discovery, a five-sigma significance is the 0.00003% likelihood of a statistical fluctuation, as scientists look for data that exceeds the five-sigma value on one half of the normal distribution graph.

Why is five sigma specifically important for particle physics?

In most areas of science that use statistical analysis, the five-sigma threshold seems overkill. In a population study, such as polls for how people will vote, usually a result with three sigma statistical significance would suffice. However, when discussing the very fabric of the Universe, scientists aim to be as precise as possible. The results of the fundamental nature of matter are high impact and have significant repercussions if they are wrong.

In the past, physicists have noticed results that could indicate new discoveries, with the data having only three to four sigma statistical significance. These have often been disproven as more data is collected.

If there is a systematic error, such as a miscalculation, the high initial significance of five sigma may mean that the results are not completely void. However, this means that the result is not definite and cannot be used to make a claim for a new discovery.

Five sigma is considered the “gold standard” in particle physics because it guarantees an extremely low likelihood of a claim being false.

But not all five sigmas are equal…

Five sigma is generally the accepted value for statistical significance for finding new particles within the Standard Model – those particles that are predicted by theory and lie within our current understanding of nature. Five sigma significance is also accepted when searching for specific properties of particle behaviour, as there is less chance of finding fluctuations elsewhere in the range.

Whether five sigma is enough statistical significance can be determined by comparing the probability of the new hypothesis with the chance it is a statistical fluctuation, taking the theory into account.

For physics beyond the Standard Model, or data that contradicts generally accepted physics, a much higher value of statistical significance is required – effectively enough to “disprove” the previous physics. In his paper “ The significance of five sigma, ” physicist Louis Lyons suggests that results for more unlikely phenomena should have a higher statistical significance, such as seven sigma for the detection of gravitational waves or the discovery of pentaquarks.

In this paper, Lyons also deems five sigma statistical significance to be enough for the Higgs boson discovery. This is because the theory for the Higgs boson had been predicted, mathematically tested, and generally accepted by the particle physics community well-before the LHC could generate conditions to be able to observe it. But once this was achieved, it still required a high statistical significance to determine if the signal detected was indeed a discovery.

___________________________________________________________________________

A statistical significance of five sigma is rigorous, but it is really a minimum. A higher value for statistical significance cements data as being more reliable. However, achieving results with statistical significance of six, seven, or even eight sigma requires a lot more data, a lot more time, and a lot more energy. In other words, a probability of at most 0.00006% that a new phenomenon is not a statistical fluke is good enough.

Find out more:

• Paper: The significance of five sigma
• Video: The Higgs boson discovery, explained
• Online article: One and two sided probability  

Is the Large Hadron Collider dangerous?

No. Although powerful for an accelerator, the energy reached in the  Large Hadron Collider  (LHC) is modest by nature’s standards.  Cosmic rays – particles produced by events in outer space – collide with particles in the Earth’s atmosphere at much greater energies than those of the LHC. These cosmic rays have been bombarding the Earth’s atmosphere as well as other astronomical bodies since these bodies were formed, with no harmful consequences. These planets and stars have stayed intact despite these higher energy collisions over billions of years.

Read more about the safety of the LHC  here

High-Luminosity LHC

The High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) is a major upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) . The LHC collides tiny particles of matter (protons) at an energy of up to 14 TeV in order to study the fundamental components of matter and the forces that bind them together. The High-Luminosity LHC will make it possible to study these in more detail by increasing the number of collisions by a factor of between 5 and 7.5 with respect to the nominal LHC design.

What is luminosity?

Instantaneous Luminosity, which is the measure of the number of potential collisions per surface unit (or cross section) over a given period of time, is an essential indicator of an accelerator’s performance. Integrated luminosity is a measure of the collected data size and defined as the time integral of the instantaneous luminosity measured in inverse femtobarns (fb −1 ). Assuming the nominal total proton cross section at the LHC at 7 TeV of 100 mbarn, one inverse femtobarn of integrated luminosity equates to 100 million million collisions.

By the end of its first few years of operation at 13 TeV (at the end of 2018), the LHC has produced just above 160 inverse femtobarns of data. The HL-LHC will produce more than 250 inverse femtobarns of data per year and will be capable of collecting up to 4000 inverse femtobarns during its exploitation period of 12 years.

Why High-Luminosity?

The phenomena that physicists are looking for have a very low probability of occurring and this is why a very large amount of data is needed to detect them. Increasing luminosity produces more data, allowing physicists to study known mechanisms in greater detail and observe rare new phenomena that might reveal themselves. For example, the High-Luminosity LHC will produce at least 15 million Higgs bosons per year, compared to around three million collected during LHC operation in 2017.

How will the High-Luminosity LHC work?

Increasing the luminosity means increasing the number of collisions: at least 140 collisions will be produced each time two particle bunches meet at the heart of the ATLAS and CMS detectors, compared to around 40 collision events at present. To achieve this, the beam will need to be more intense and more focused than at present in the LHC. New equipment will need to be installed over about 1.2 of the LHC’s 27 kilometres.

• More powerful focusing magnets and new optics

New, more powerful superconducting quadrupole magnets will be installed on either side of the ATLAS and CMS experiments to focus the particle bunches before they meet. These magnets will be made of a novel superconducting compound, based on niobium and tin [Nb 3 Sn], used for the first time in an accelerator, which will make it possible to achieve higher magnetic fields than the niobium-titanium alloy used for the current LHC magnets (12 Tesla as opposed to 8). Twenty-four new quadrupole magnets are currently in production, six of which will be installed on each side of the two high luminosity experiments ATLAS and CMS. The use of niobium-tin magnets is also an opportunity to develop this technology for large scale application in future accelerators.

New beam optics (the way the beams are tilted and focused) will notably make it possible to maintain a constant collision rate throughout the time the beams will collide.

• “Crab cavities” for tilting the beams

The particles circulate in the LHC in distinct packages, called bunches. Each bunch is about 30 cm long. This innovative superconducting equipment will give the particle bunches a transverse momentum before they meet, enlarging the overlap area of the two bunches and thus increasing the probability of collisions. A total of sixteen crab cavities will be installed on both side of each of the ATLAS and CMS experiments.

• Reinforced machine protection

As the beams will contain more particles and hence almost twice the stored beam energy of the current LHC, machine protection will need to be reinforced. Around one hundred new, more performant collimators will be installed, replacing or supplementing the existing ones. These devices absorb particles that stray from the beam trajectory and might otherwise damage the machine.

• Crystal collimators

New crystal collimators will be installed in the dedicated cleaning insertions to improve the cleaning efficiency of the insertions for ion beam operation. Without these devices, the higher ion beam intensities would result in unacceptably high losses in the superconducting magnets.

• Innovative superconducting links

Innovative superconducting power lines will connect the power converters to the new accelerator magnets. These cables, which are around one hundred metres long, are made of a novel superconducting material, magnesium di-boride, that is superconducting at a much higher temperature than the magnets, and can therefore be cooled more energy-efficiently by using gaseous Helium. They will be able to carry currents of record intensities, up to 100 000 Amps when being cooled down to temperatures below 50 Kelvin!

• An upgraded accelerator chain

The HL-LHC’s performance will also rely upon the injector chain , i.e. the four machines that pre-accelerate the beams before sending them into the 27-kilometre LHC ring. This accelerator chain has been upgraded during the second long shutdown of the LHC between 2018 and 2021.

What is the work schedule?

In order to install the new equipment and move certain components around, new underground structures and surface buildings are required.

The civil engineering work began in April 2018 at LHC Point 1 (in Meyrin, Switzerland), where the ATLAS experiment is located, and at LHC Point 5 (in Cessy, France), the site of the CMS experiment. A new shaft of around 80 metres, as well as an underground cavern and a 300-metre-long service tunnel has been dug on each site. This service tunnel is linked to the LHC tunnel by four connecting tunnels and 12 vertical cores for each of the two high luminosity experiments ATLAS and CMS. The four main connections between the new and old infrastructures have already been established in 2019. Five surface buildings will be built on each site to house the electrical, cryogenic and cooling and ventilation infrastructure of the new HL-LHC equipment.

In the meantime, the new equipment is being manufactured in Europe, Japan, the United States and China. Canada will also contribute to the production of the state-of-the-art equipment. The experiments are also preparing for major upgrades of their detectors to deal with the deluge of data promised by the HL-LHC.

Installation of the first components (the crystal collimators, beam instrumentation, some other collimators and new shielding) has taken place during the second long shutdown of the LHC. Most of the equipment and the major experiment upgrades will however be installed during Long Shutdown 3, to take place between 2026 and 2028.

How much will the High-Luminosity LHC cost?

The material budget for the accelerator is set at about 1 billion Swiss francs between 2015 and 2028, including many in-kind contributions from international partner laboratories.

Who is involved in the project?

CERN and its Member and Associate Member States are supported by an international collaboration of 43 institutions in 19 countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan and China.

How will society benefit from the HL-LHC?

The HL-LHC will further our fundamental knowledge , which is CERN’s primary mission. To develop the HL-LHC upgrade, CERN is pushing several technologies to new limits, such as electrical engineering, notably in terms of superconductors, vacuum technologies, computing, electronics and even industrial processes. In the long term, these innovations will benefit our daily lives .

For example, superconducting magnets find applications in the fields of medical imaging and cancer treatment with particle beams (hadron therapy). There are also many prospects in the field of electrical engineering: European industry is studying the possibility of using magnesium di-boride cables to transport high electrical power over great distances in a way that is sustainable for the environment.

The HL-LHC project is also contributing to the training of new scientists – physicists, engineers and technicians. Currently, more than 200 bachelor and master students, doctoral students, post-doctoral researchers and fellows of 23 different nationalities are participating in the project.

HL-LHC brochure (a printable version of the text shown above)

CERN press release, 15 June 2018: Major work starts to boost the luminosity of the LHC

Facts and figures about the LHC

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built. The accelerator sits in a tunnel 100 metres underground at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland.

What is the LHC?

The LHC is a particle accelerator that pushes protons or ions to near the speed of light. It consists of a 27-kilometre ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures that boost the energy of the particles along the way.

Why is it called the “Large Hadron Collider”?

• "Large" refers to its size, approximately 27km in circumference
• "Hadron" because it accelerates protons or ions, which belong to the group of particles called hadrons
• "Collider" because the particles form two beams travelling in opposite directions, which are made to collide at four points around the machine

How does the LHC work?

• The CERN accelerator complex is a succession of machines with increasingly higher energies. Each machine accelerates a beam of particles to a given energy before injecting the beam into the next machine in the chain. This next machine brings the beam to an even higher energy and so on. The LHC is the last element of this chain, in which the beams reach their highest energies.
• Inside the LHC, two particle beams travel at close to the speed of light before they are made to collide. The beams travel in opposite directions in separate beam pipes – two tubes kept at ultrahigh vacuum . They are guided around the accelerator ring by a strong magnetic field maintained by superconducting electromagnets . Below a certain characteristic temperature, some materials enter a superconducting state and offer no resistance to the passage of electrical current. The electromagnets in the LHC are therefore chilled to ‑271.3°C (1.9K) – a temperature colder than outer space – to take advantage of this effect. The accelerator is connected to a vast distribution system of liquid helium, which cools the magnets, as well as to other supply services.

What are the main goals of the LHC?

The Standard Model of particle physics – a theory developed in the early 1970s that describes the fundamental particles and their interactions – has precisely predicted a wide variety of phenomena and so far successfully explained almost all experimental results in particle physics.. But the Standard Model is incomplete. It leaves many questions open, which the LHC will help to answer.  

• What is the origin of mass? The Standard Model does not explain the origins of mass, nor why some particles are very heavy while others have no mass at all. However, theorists Robert Brout, François Englert and Peter Higgs made a proposal that was to solve this problem. The Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism gives a mass to particles when they interact with an invisible field, now called the “Higgs field”, which pervades the universe. Particles that interact intensely with the Higgs field are heavy, while those that have feeble interactions are light. In the late 1980s, physicists started the search for the Higgs boson , the particle associated with the Higgs field. In July 2012, CERN announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, which confirmed the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism. However, finding it is not the end of the story, and researchers have to study the Higgs boson in detail to measure its properties and pin down its rarer decays.  
• Will we discover evidence for supersymmetry ? The Standard Model does not offer a unified description of all the fundamental forces, as it remains difficult to construct a theory of gravity similar to those for the other forces. Supersymmetry – a theory that hypothesises the existence of more massive partners of the standard particles we know – could facilitate the unification of fundamental forces .  
• What are dark matter and dark energy ? The matter we know and that makes up all stars and galaxies only accounts for 4% of the content of the universe. The search is then still open for particles or phenomena responsible for dark matter (23%) and dark energy (73%).  
• Why is there far more matter than antimatter in the universe? Matter and antimatter must have been produced in the same amounts at the time of the Big Bang, but from what we have observed so far, our Universe is made only of matter.  
• How does the quark-gluon plasma give rise to the particles that constitute the matter of our Universe? For part of each year, the LHC provides collisions between lead ions, recreating conditions similar to those just after the Big Bang. When heavy ions collide at high energies they form for an instant the quark-gluon plasma, a “fireball” of hot and dense matter that can be studied by the experiments.

How was the LHC designed?

Scientists started thinking about the LHC in the early 1980s, when the previous accelerator, the LEP , was not yet running. In December 1994, CERN Council voted to approve the construction of the LHC and in October 1995, the LHC technical design report was published.

Contributions from Japan, the USA, India and other non-Member States accelerated the process and between 1996 and 1998, four experiments ( ALICE , ATLAS , CMS and LHCb ) received official approval and construction work started on the four sites.

Important figures: the energy of the LHC for Run 2

What are the detectors at the lhc.

There are nine experiments installed at the LHC: ALICE , ATLAS , CMS , LHCb , LHCf , TOTEM , MoEDAL-MAPP , FASER and SND@LHC . They use detectors to analyse the myriad of particles produced by collisions in the accelerator. These experiments are run by collaborations of scientists from institutes all over the world. Each experiment is distinct, and characterized by its detectors.

What is the data flow from the LHC experiments?

The CERN Data Centre stores more than 30 petabytes of data per year from the LHC experiments, enough to fill about 1.2 million Blu-ray discs, i.e. 250 years of HD video. Over 100 petabytes of data are permanently archived, on tape.

How much does the LHC cost?

• Construction costs (MCHF)

*This includes: Machine R&D and injectors, tests and pre-operation. ** Contains infrastructure costs (such as caverns and facilities). The total cost of all LHC detectors is about 1500 MCHF

The experimental collaborations are individual entities, funded independently from CERN. CERN is a member of each experiment and contributes to the maintenance and operation budget of the LHC experiments.

• Costs for Run 1 Exploitation costs of the LHC when running (direct and indirect costs) represent about 80% of the CERN annual budget for operation, maintenance, technical stops, repairs and consolidation work in personnel and materials (for machine, injectors, computing, experiments). The directly allocated resources for the years 2009-2012 were about 1.1 billion CHF.  
• Costs for LS1 The cost of the Long Shutdown 1 (22 months) is estimated at 150 Million CHF. The maintenance and upgrade works represent about 100 MCHF for the LHC and 50 MCHF for the accelerator complex without the LHC.

What is the LHC power consumption?

The total power consumption of the LHC (and experiments) is equivalent to 600 GWh per year, with a maximum of 650 GWh in 2012 when the LHC was running at 4 TeV. For Run 2, the estimated power consumption is 750 GWh per year. The total CERN energy consumption is 1.3 TWh per year while the total electrical energy production in the world is around 20000 TWh, in the European Union 3400 TWh, in France around 500 TWh, and in Geneva canton 3 TWh.

What are the main achievements of the LHC so far?

• 10 September 2008 : LHC first beam (see press release )  
• 23 November 2009 : LHC first collisions (see press release )  
• 30 November 2009 : world record with beam energy of 1.18 TeV (see press release )  
• 16 December 2009 : world record with collisions at 2.36 TeV and significant quantities of data recorded (see press release )  
• March 2010 : first beams at 3.5 TeV (19 March) and first high energy collisions at 7 TeV (30 March) (see press release )  
• 8 November 2010 : LHC first lead-ion beams (see press release )  
• 22 April 2011 : LHC sets new world record beam intensity (see press release )  
• 5 April 2012 : First collisions at 8 TeV (see press release )  

For more information about the Higgs boson: The Higgs boson CERN and the Higgs boson The Basics of the Higgs boson How standard is the Higgs boson discovered in 2012? Higgs update 4 July  

• 28 September 2012 :  Tweet from CERN: " The LHC has reached its target for 2012 by delivering 15 fb-1 (around a million billion collisions) to ATLAS and CMS "  
• 14 February 2013 :  At 7.24 a.m, the last beams for physics were absorbed into the LHC, marking the end of Run 1 and the beginning of the Long Shutdown 1 (see press release )  
• 8 October 2013 : Physics Nobel prize to François Englert and Peter Higgs  “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider ” (see press release )

See LHC Milestones .

What are the main goals for the second run of the LHC?

The discovery of the Higgs boson was only the first chapter of the LHC story. Indeed, the restart of the machine this year marks the beginning of a new adventure, as it will operate at almost double the energy of its first run. Thanks to the work that has been done during the Long Shutdown 1, the LHC will now be able to produce 13 TeV collisions (6.5 TeV per beam), which will allow physicists to further explore the nature of our Universe.

How long will the LHC run?

The LHC is planned to run over the next 20 years, with several stops scheduled for upgrades and maintenance work.

CERN answers queries from social media

What happened with the lhc in 2015 and what does cern plan to do in the future.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) restarted at a collision energy of 13 teraelectronvolts (TeV) in June 2015. Throughout September and October 2015, CERN gradually increased the  number of collisions , while remaining at the same energy. In November, as with previous LHC runs, the machine run with  lead ions  instead of protons until mid-December when it had its winter technical stop.

After a successful run in 2016, the most powerful collider in the world was switched back on in spring 2017, followed by a period of tests. After a period of commissioning, the LHC experiments began taking physics data for 2017. Over the coming years, the LHC operators plan to increase the intensity of the beams so that the machine produces a larger number of collisions. This will enable physicists to have a better understanding of fundamental physics.

Why is the Higgs boson referred to as the God particle?

The Higgs boson is the linchpin of the  Standard Model of particle physics  but experimental physicists weren’t able to observe it until the arrival of the LHC, nearly 50 years after the particle was first postulated. Leon Lederman coined the term ‘the God particle’ in his popular 1993 book ‘The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What is the Question?’ written with Dick Teresi. In their book, Lederman and Teresi claim the nickname originated because the publisher wouldn’t allow them to call it ‘the Goddamn Particle’ – a name that reflected the difficulty in observing the elusive boson. The name caught on through the media attention it attracted but is disliked by both clerics and scientists.

Is CERN's aim to prove that God does not exist?

No. People from all over the world work together harmoniously at CERN, representing all regions, religions and cultures. CERN exists to understand the mystery of nature for the benefit of humankind. Scientists at CERN use the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments to study the basic constituents of matter – the fundamental particles. Particles are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. This process gives the physicists clues about how the particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature.

Why does CERN have a statue of Shiva?

The Shiva statue was a gift from India to celebrate its association with CERN, which started in the 1960’s and remains strong today. In the Hindu religion, Lord Shiva practiced Nataraj dance which symbolises Shakti, or life force. This deity was chosen by the Indian government because of a metaphor that was drawn between the cosmic dance of the Nataraj and the modern study of the ‘cosmic dance’ of subatomic particles. India is one of CERN’s associate member states . CERN is a multicultural organisation that welcomes scientists from more than 100 countries and 680 institutions. The Shiva statue is only one of the many statues and art pieces at CERN.

What are the shapes in the CERN logo?

The shapes in CERN’s current logo represent particle accelerators. The logo in this form dates back to 1968, when a decision was made to change the CERN logo from the original one, seen  here . Some 114 new designs were proposed, many of which used CERN’s  experiments  as inspiration. The final design used the original lettering, surrounded by a schematic of a synchrotron, beam lines and particle tracks. Today’s logo is a simplified version of this.

Will CERN open a door to another dimension?

CERN will not open a door to another dimension. If the experiments conducted at the LHC demonstrate the existence of certain particles it could help physicists to test various theories about nature and our Universe, such as the presence of extra dimensions. There is more information  here .

What did Stephen Hawking say about Higgs potential destroying the Universe?

Hawking was not discussing the work being done at the LHC.

The LHC observes nature at a fundamental level but does not influence it. Measurements of the  Higgs boson have allowed us to learn more about the intrinsic nature of the Universe, and it is this that Hawking was discussing. The measured properties of the boson suggest that the Universe is in a quasi-stable equilibrium, though with a lifetime far exceeding anything we can imagine (10 100  years). This is explained further in the TEDxCERN talk below:

http://tedxcern.web.cern.ch/video/2013/what-higgs-might-mean-fate-universe

Why does CERN appear in Google Maps when I type certain keywords?

Many of these associations have no grounding in fact, and are a possible result of several users renaming locations on their own maps, keyword searches, or from lots of users creating custom maps, which utilise those search terms.

Can the LHC have an influence on weather patterns and natural phenomena?

No. The magnets at CERN have an electromagnetic field, which is contained with the magnets themselves and therefore cannot influence the Earth’s magnetic field, nor the weather. The strength of the LHC magnets (8.36 teslas) is comparable to the magnetic field found  in PET-MRI scanners  ( up to 9.4 tesla ), which are regularly used for brain scans.

I saw a video of a strange ritual at CERN, is it real?

No, this video from summer 2016 was a work of fiction showing a contrived scene. CERN does not condone this kind of action, which breaches  CERN’s professional guidelines . Those involved were identified and apropriate measures taken.

Does the LHC trigger earthquakes?

The LHC does not trigger earthquakes. Earthquakes are a natural hazard caused by the movement of tectonic plates. As these rigid plates move towards, apart or past each other they can lock up and build up huge stresses at their boundaries, such as the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, or along the Pacific rim. When the plates suddenly slip apart, this stress is relieved, releasing huge amounts of energy and causing an earthquake.

Several million earthquakes occur across the Earth each year but most are too small to be detected without monitoring equipment. There is no means by which the LHC could trigger earthquakes, and no correlation between LHC operation and the occurrence of earthquakes.

Anecdote: Some high precision instruments at CERN are able to detect earthquakes due to their sensitivity to tiny movements. In the LHC, there are more than 100 Hydrostatic Levelling Sensors that monitor the relative displacements of the magnets that steer beams of particles around the LHC’s 27 km ring. These sensors can detect the waves emitted by earthquakes occurring even very far away after their journey through the Earth. Another tool, the Precision Laser Inclinometer, is used to measure the movements of underground structures that can affect the precise positioning of the LHC’s particle detectors. These are also sensitive enough to detect earthquakes.

How do I visit CERN?

CERN has a rich educational and cultural programme. As an integral part of this programme, tours of the Laboratory are free of charge.

Find out more about CERN tours via visit.cern , which includes frequently asked questions about CERN tours .

How to get to CERN .

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Visitors cards: access to cern for visitors and conference participants, error message.

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The conditions of access to the fenced parts of the CERN site are defined in Operational Circular No. 2 and the accompanying  Implementation Measures .

Visitors may come to CERN:

• for individual (guests) or group visits;
• to attend conferences on the CERN site;
• to participate in guided tours organised by the Visits Service.

These visitors must be in possession of a CERN visitor card, which must be worn where it can be easily seen. The visitor card bears the holder, who is the only person permitted to use it, and its maximum period of validity is the duration of the visit or conference.

Since holders of visitor cards do not have a contractual relationship with CERN, they are prohibited from coming to work on the site. A person who comes to work on the CERN site under a contract with the Organization must register as a contractor in Building 55.

This card allows the holder access to the CERN site when presented to the security guards on duty. Nevertheless, it does not allow access to controlled-access areas unless the holder has a special authorization or is accompanied by an authorized person (guide, guarantor, etc...).

It will no longer be possible for holders of a CERN access card to be accompanied by persons who do not hold a visitor card.

N.B. Visitors who remain outside the fenced parts of the site, for example in the permanent exhibition areas (Microcosm and the Globe) or in the CERN shop, do not need a visitor card.

In certain cases, and if the guarantor requested it in the application, holders of a visitor card will be able to bring their vehicle onto the CERN sites. In this case, the registration number of the authorized vehicle will be printed directly on the visitor card.. 

1. Obtaining a visitor card

1.1 for individual visitors or groups of visitors.

If individual visitors or groups of visitors wish to visit a person present on the CERN site, whether in a professional or a private capacity, a member of the personnel must vouch for the compatibility of the visit with CERN's activities and must apply for the visitor card(s). This guarantor must be:

• a  member of the CERN personnel , or
• a member of the Council, a committee or another subsidiary body of CERN (usually registered as  External, COMT ), or
• an  Industrial Liaison Officer .

He is responsible for the visit and, for security reasons, must be on site for the duration of his visit. It is also his responsability to ensure that all visitors abide by the CERN Code of Conduct in all respects.

The guarantor must apply for the visitor card in advance, 48 hours before the beginning of the visit, by completing the Request for a CERN visitor card (individual visitors or groups) , providing the first information about the description of the visit:

• the guarantor of the visit,
• the name of the visit which will used as a reference for the visit,
• the reason for the visit, providing the necessary details to enable the Security Service  to determine the legitimacy of the visit,
• the date of arrival and departure.

and then the registration of the visitor(s):

1. either by filling the details of the visitor(s):

• surname, first name (to be completed as mentioned on the identity document to ease their identification by the Security Service  upon their arrival),
• nationality,
• e-mail address (only if the visitor must be informed of the reservation code),
• phone number (facultative information),
• date and place of birth,
• vehicle registration number if the visitor is coming by car and cannot park in the Globe car park.  

2. or by mentioning the surname, first name and e-mail address of each visitor and then submitting the form. In this case, the visitor(s) will receive an e-mail containing the instructions allowing them to complete the information concerning them in the visitor card request.

N.B.  It is strongly recommended to create your visitor card request at least two working days (48 hours) before the beginning of the visit.

Each application may include up to 10 persons. In the case of a larger visit, it is recommended to create an event in Indico and follow the procedure.

If the requestor completes the request in place of the guarantor, he must agree that the guarantor has read the terms and conditions.

The guarantor follows the evolution of his request as well as the status of each request for each person: completed, pending, refused and cancelled (cf. KB0006227: Request for a visitor access card: Checking visitors status ). He can't however see the personal information submitted by the visitor(s) in accordance with the processing of personal data.

In the case of a visit cancellation, the guarantor is responsible for informing the  Security Service . If a visitor has himself submitted his private data in the visitor card request, he will also be able to cancel the visit.

Applications for visitor cards valid for a period of more than two days will be examined individually by the  head of security .

When the application has been approved by the Reception and Access Control Service and all the data collected, the confirmation code of the visit is sent to the requestor and the guarantor, who are then responsible for forwarding the information to the visitor(s) concerned. If the requestor provided the e-mail addresses of the visitor(s) in the application, they will also receive this confirmation. It is important to note that the requestor and the guarantor are responsible for informing the visitor(s) of the procedure to be followed and for sending them the visitor card(s).

If the visit takes place from Monday to Saturday between 8:00am and 6:00pm (opening hours of the Main Reception), the guarantor or visitor must go to the printing terminal in Building 33 ( Main Reception ), enter the unique code that they have received, select the name(s) of the person or persons concerned and collect the visitor card(s) from the security guard on duty, presenting a valid identity document.

Outside these opening hours and 24 hours a day , it is also possible for the guarantor or visitor to follow the same procedure on the printing terminal located in front of the building 55 (inside the phone booth). Then the visitor card(s) can be collected from the security guard on duty at Entrance B.

In addition to Building 33 and Gate B in Meyrin, it is now possible to print the approved visitor cards at the entrance of the Prévessin site in Building 880 . A desk to enter the access code and a printer are available from the security officer in charge of access control.

N. B.  If an unannounced visitor arrives at the Reception in Building 33 , the security guard on duty there contacts the guarantor to check that the visit is legitimate. The guarantor then follows the procedure above to produce the visitor card.

If a person comes to work on the CERN site under a contract with the Organization, he/she does not have to request for a visitor card but register as a contractor in Building 55 .

1.2 For participants in a conference (or workshop or seminar) on the CERN site

If the conference organiser is a member of the personnel, he or she is considered to be the CERN guarantor for all participants. If the organiser is not a member of the personnel, another person involved in the organisation of the event who is a member of the personnel must act as the guarantor. No visitor cards can be issued to accompanying persons who are not on the list of conference participants.

The CERN conference organiser creates the event in Indico . The organiser then activates visitor card management using the “CERN visitor badges” option in the “Logistics” menu. At the time of activation, the organiser indicates which registration forms will be used to give access. The participants must register online using one of the forms indicated. The organiser then individually confirms each participant’s right to access the site in Indico and the participants receive an e-mail asking them to fill in their nationality and date and place of birth online (in an Indico form). When this information has been submitted, each participant receives an e-mail containing a reservation code and a visitor card, which should be printed in A4 format and then folded into four to obtain an A6 format.

The conference organiser may customise the back of the card, adding specific information pertaining to the conference, such as its logo.

The organiser may also at any time withdraw access from or grant access to a participant whose name appears on the Indico list.

On the day of the event, participants must be able to show their visitor cards, along with a valid identity document, to the security guard on duty at Reception in Building 33. A badge holder is distributed on arrival, so that the visitor card can be worn where it can be easily seen. Any participant who forgets to bring a visitor card, or if the Main Reception is closed, may request that a replacement be printed by entering the reservation code at the terminal provided for this purpose at Reception or inside the phone booth located in front of the Building 55 presenting it to the security guard at Entrance B.

1.3 For participants in guided tours organised by the Visits Service

The Visits Service website outlines the procedure and conditions applicable to the organisation of various types of tour : tours for pupils and students, tours for groups, tours for individuals and private visits.

The organiser submits a tour organisation request on the site visit.cern  (Guided tours). Organisers who have no connection to CERN can request that a CERN Lightweight Account be created for them. When the visit has been approved by the Visits Service , the organiser receives an e-mail requesting additional information for each visitor (surname, first name, date of birth, city and country of birth).

The Visits Service then prints the visitor cards, which are distributed to the visitors by the staff on the reception desk at the Main Reception in Building 33. These cards are in the same format as the individual visitor cards.

1.4 Overview of the different procedures for obtaining a visitor card

Special case for participants in a guided visit and a visit of another type during the same period:

When the same group of visitors would like to add to a guided visit a visit of another type (conference, private visit or professional visit), it is recommended to make sure that the request for a guided visit can be accepted then to prepare the visitor card request:

• either by completing the  Request for a CERN visitor card (individual visitors or groups) for a small group of visitors and include the entire visit period in the application;
• either by creating an event in Indico for a group event always mentioning the full period.

As an example: a person wants to organise a visit via the Visits service on a day and then the following day after the guided visit, she takes the responsibility as guarantor to propose and additional conference on the Prévessin site. The requestor must first book a guided visit during the dates of the event with the Visits service while informing them that the visitor cards will be requested in parallel. Then, once the guided visit has been accepted by the Visits service, the requestor will apply for visitor cards either via ServiceNow (see paragraph 1.1) or Indico (see paragraph 1.2) according to the number of visitors concerned.

2. Parking and access to the CERN site for private vehicles and coaches

2.1 private vehicles.

Where bringing a car onto the CERN site is justified and if the guarantor has clearly specified it in the application, for example if the venue is some distance away, holders of visitor cards can obtain authorization to bring their vehicle onto the CERN sites.

In this case, the registration number of the vehicle is printed directly on the visitor card.

2.2 Coaches

Coaches are permitted to enter the CERN site to drop off or pick up participants in visits or conferences at the event venue.

If a coach is to be used:

• conference organisers must notify the Reception and Access Control Service and provide the details of the driver(s) (surname, first name) and the coach itself (model, registration number);
• tour organisers must provide the details of the driver(s) (surname, first name, date of birth, town and country of birth and registration number) when booking the guided tour.

Special parking spaces for coaches are provided in the Globe car park, outside the Meyrin site. By default, coaches are permitted to enter and leave the car park only once. For an event lasting two days or more, the coach driver must report to Reception in Building 33 in order to be granted an additional entry. Coaches may not be parked on the CERN site.

Reference documents

Other procedures, useful documents, external links, reception and access control service.

The Reception and Access Control Service via the CERN Service Portal.

• Read more about Reception and Access Control Service

Site Security Service

Information available via the Service Portal .

• Read more about Site Security Service

Visits Service

Building 33/R-004

Phone numbers: +41 22 767 2310, +41 22 767 2757, +41 22 767 4052

Website:  http://visit.cern/

• Read more about Visits Service

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Book your On-Site Visit

https://cms.cern/interact-with-cms/book-your-on-site-visit

Visits are possible Monday to Saturday from 9h00 until 18h00. For all enquiries or to reserve a guided tour of the CMS site please send an e-mail to CMS Visits  at least a week in advance (1 month for larger groups) of the tour date, indicating your preferred date, time and the number of people in the group (maximum group size 48 people).

All groups are requested to make their own transport arrangements to the CMS site.

Please note, for safety purposes or in the event of a major intervention CMS reserves the right to postpone or cancel visits at short notice.

We look forward to welcoming you to CMS.

To visit the CERN Laboratory please contact the CERN visit service directly.