COMPASS: Common Muon and Proton Apparatus for Structure and Spectroscopy

What the COMPASS experiment is actually? I barely remember the name the abbreviation stands for... But I know some basic stuff I can share. I doubt I will ever understand the physics behind it anyway :)

So COMPASS is an experiment at the second largest working particle accelerator on Earth: the SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron) from 1976. The experiment is in Prevessin, which is France and a couple of kilometers from Meyrin, the main CERN site in Switzerland. So you pay in euros and the food is maybe a little better :)

COMPASS investigates the way quarks and gluons interact to create particles like protons and neutrons, which you actually may have heard of in high school. So we collide some small thingies called muons, supposedly something like heavy electrons. I might describe the magic behind how it's done when I actually know more about it...

There are about 300 people from different countries working on this. My group consist of a bunch of Czech guys from CTU and Charles University. Most of us do IT but there are also some physicists. We are known as the Czech mafia because the guys keep wearing black coats and hats :)

Luckily enough, I was able to see the experiment this week. It is not accessible when the beam is on, so we were pretty lucky to get to see everything. You can have a look at how it looks like.

Every person entering the experiment needs to take a key with them.
Just to make sure you won't stay in there without somebody knowing about you. 

One of the magnets. Red as usual :)

The triggers are to be touched by experts only :)
The crazy system of wires looked very organized to me...