Gargamelle was the name given to a big bubble chamber built at the Saclay Laboratory in France during the late 1960s. It was designed principally for the detection at CERN of the elusive particles called neutrinos. Gargamelle is on display at CERN in the Microcosm garden.

Gargamelle was the name given to a big bubble chamber built at the Saclay Laboratory in France during the late 1960s. The experiment ran at CERN from 1970 - 1976 and in 1973 found the first experimental evidence of the particles responsible for transmitting the weak force. The weak force, one of the 4 fundamental interactions at work in the universe, has long been the subject of research at CERN. The force is responsible for radioactivity and is the reason why the sun shines. Gargamelle observed what is known as neutral currents, the process of a neutrino and electron transforming into a muon and a neutrino by exchanging an electrically neutral force carrier. The interaction was triggered by a beam of neutrinos and recorded by photographing the trail of bubbles left behind in the freon that filled the experiment's main chamber. Gargamelle has been conserved and is now displayed in the Microcosm garden.

Prototype made by Breskin.Has never been used. Breskin was a ph.d student working under Charpak supervision. The dimensions include the support.

A wire chamber used at CERN's Proton Synchrotron accelerator in the 1970s. Multi-wire detectors contain layers of positively and negatively charged wires enclosed in a chamber full of gas. A charged particle passing through the chamber knocks negatively charged electrons out of atoms in the gas, leaving behind positive ions. The electrons are pulled towards the positively charged wires. They collide with other atoms on the way, producing an avalanche of electrons and ions. The movement of these electrons and ions induces an electric pulse in the wires which is collected by fast electronics. The size of the pulse is proportional to the energy loss of the original particle.

Multi-wire detectors contain layers of positively and negatively charged wires enclosed in a chamber full of gas. A charged particle passing through the chamber knocks negatively charged electrons out of atoms in the gas, leaving behind positive ions. The electrons are pulled towards the positively charged wires. They collide with other atoms on the way, producing an avalanche of electrons and ions. The movement of these electrons and ions induces an electric pulse in the wires which is collected by fast electronics. The size of the pulse is proportional to the energy loss of the original particle.

Multi-wire detectors contain layers of positively and negatively charged wires enclosed in a chamber full of gas. A charged particle passing through the chamber knocks negatively charged electrons out of atoms in the gas, leaving behind positive ions. The electrons are pulled towards the positively charged wires. They collide with other atoms on the way, producing an avalanche of electrons and ions. The movement of these electrons and ions induces an electric pulse in the wires which is collected by fast electronics. The size of the pulse is proportional to the energy loss of the original particle.

DELPHI was one of the four experiments installed at the LEP particle accelerator from 1989 - 2000. The silicon tracking detector was nearest to the collision point in the centre of the detector. It was used to pinpoint the collision and catch short-lived particles.

Model of the tracking detector for the CMS experiment at the LHC. This object is a mock-up of an early design of the CMS Tracker mechanics. It is a segment of a “Wheel” to support Micro-Strip Gas Chamber (MSGC) detector modules on the outer layers and silicon-strip detector modules in the innermost layers. The particularity of that design is that modules are organised in spirals, along which power and optical cables and cooling pipes were planned to be routed. Some of such spirals are illustrated in the mock-up by the colors of the modules. With the detector development it became, however, evident that the silicon detectors would need to be operated in LHC experiments in cold temperatures, while the MSGC could stay in normal room-temperature. That split in two temperatures lead to separating those two detector types by a thermal barrier and therefore jeopardizing the idea of using common, vertical Wheels with services arranged along spirals.

OPAL was one of the 4 experiments installed at the LEP particle accelerator from 1989 to 2000. This is a slice of the outermost layer of OPAL : the muon chambers. This outside layer detects particles which are not stopped by the previous layers. These are mostly muons.

Chorus light guide and a selection of fibres in wooden box.