Archives of Large Electron Positron Collider Division and Committee, LEP and LEPC

Identity Statement [Top]

Reference code(s)

CERN-ARCH-LEP-1-01-001 to CERN-ARCH-LEP-1-05-025

CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-01-001 to CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-20-004

Title

Archives of Large Electron Positron Collider Division and Committee, LEP and LEPC

Date(s)

1978 - 2008

Level of description

Sub-fonds

Extent of the unit of description

73 Boxes, 129 items, 8 linear metres (1st accession)

396 Boxes, 791 items, 44 linear metres (2nd accession)

Context [Top]

Name of creator

Large Electron Positron Collider Division, LEP

Administrative

  • 1976 : Start of LEP design studies
  • 1978 : First practical design was published
  • 1981 : Council approved construction for an initial operating energy of 50 GeV per beam; Emilio Picasso named as LEP Project Director until 1989
  • 1983 : Ground-breaking ceremony for LEP; G. Plass named as LEP Division Leader until 1989
  • 1989 : Inauguration of LEP
  • 1990 : G. Plass named as Director of Accelerators, and L. R. Evans became SL (LEP+SPS) Division Leader
  • 1994 : K. H. Kissler became the new SL (LEP+SPS) Division leader
  • 1996 : LEP energy is increased to allow production of pairs of W particles (140 GeV)
  • 2000 : LEP accelerator, achieving a collision energy of 209 GeV, closed in November. S. Myers became the new SL (LEP+SPS) Division leader until 2002.

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Roger Calder in July 1993 and the Libray in 2004

Content & Structure [Top]

Scope and content

The Large Electron Positron Collider, LEP, is a particle accelerator built inside a circular tunnel 27km round and buried 100 metres underground. At four points around the accelerator, huge detectors called ALEPH (Apparatus for LEp PHysics), DELPHI (DEtector with Lepton, Photon and Hadron Identification), L3 and OPAL (Omni Purpose Apparatus for Lep) studied what happened when electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons, collided at high energy.

LEP was switched on in the summer of 1989. For six years, its job was to produce Z particles, carriers of one of nature's fundamental forces. The Z was first discovered in a Nobel Prize (link is external) winning CERN experiment in 1983. Z particles had been made at LEP when electrons and positrons collided with enough energy to provide their mass, around 91 GeV.

In 1995, LEP's Z era came to an end, the machine moved up a gear to 140 GeV ready for LEP's second phase which pushed the energy to over 190 GeV before the end of the decade. Known as LEP2, this second phase of LEP was to produce and study W particles, companions of the Z, which were also discovered at CERN in 1983.

LEP stopped in November 2000, but the analysis of data is still going on, with the possibility of discovering new physics phenomena.

It was dismantled in 2001 to give way to the Large Hadron Collider LHC.

LEP collection contains minutes of LPC (LEP Project Committee), LMAC ( LEP Machine Advisory Committee), MARTEC (Main Ring Technical Committee), Group Leader's meetings, LEP Management Board (LMB), reports and notes.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information

Nothing was destroyed.

Accruals

Further accruals may be received.

System of arrangement

The original order has been preserved. For the purposes of cataloguing the files have been described according to the following plan:

CERN-ARCH-LEP-1-01 Administration and general
CERN-ARCH-LEP-1-02 Safety
CERN-ARCH-LEP-1-03 LEP Committees and Working Groups
CERN-ARCH-LEP-1-04 LEP Reports and notes
CERN-ARCH-LEP-1-05 LEP experiments Committee (LEPC) and LEP experiments

For the purposes of cataloguing the files have been described according to the following plan:

CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-01 Specifications
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-02 Notes and Internal notes
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-03 Meetings
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-04 Files of Emilio Picasso - LEP Project Director (1981-1989)
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-05 Files of Günther Plass - Deputy to LEP Project leader (1981-1989), LEP Division leader (1983-1989), Director of Accelerators (1990-1993)
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-06 Files of Manfred Buhler-Broglin - Administrateur du projet LHC,Chargé par le Directeur-Général de la procédure DUP (Déclaration d'Utilité Publique)
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-07 Files of Pierre C. Troendle - Service of Local Affairs
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-08 Files of L. Gignoux - - Service of Local Affairs for the LEP Project
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-09 Files of Robert Lévy-Mandel - Assistant to LEP Project Leader on questions of security
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-10 Files of Oscar Barbalat - Group leader of Industry and Technology Liaison Office (ITLO),1992-1997
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-11 Files of Kurt Hübner - Director of Accelerators (1994-2001)
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-12 Files of Carlo Wyss - Deputy for the LEP200 project
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-13 Files of F. Ferger and Stuart Turner
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-14 Files of Alain Brissonnaud
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-15 Permis de construire, DUP, Etude d'impact, Etude géologique, ...
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-16 Arbitrage CERN - EUROLEP
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-17 Photos
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-18 Magnets measurements
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-19 Chrono
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-20 Files of LEP Secretariat
CERN-ARCH-LEP-2-21 LEP Fest - 9-11 October 2000

Conditions of access and use [Top]

Conditions governing access

See file level description and the CERN operational circular No 3: rules applicable to archival material and archiving at CERN. In general, records on any subject that are over 30 years old, and all records of a purely scientific nature, may be consulted.

Conditions governing reproduction

Copyright is retained by CERN, no reproduction without permission.

Language / scripts of material

Most of the material is written in English or French.

Finding aids

Listed to file level in the CERN Archives Database.

Description control [Top]

Archivist's note

Description prepared by Maryse Moskofian

Date(s) of description

Geneva, the 10th September 2003, Revised 2007, 2017