The OPAL Experiment at LEP 1989-2000OPAL was one of the major particle physics experiments at CERN. OPAL studied particles and their interactions by collecting and analysing electron-positron collision events at LEP, the Large Electron-Positron collider. LEP was the largest particle accelerator in the world. There were three other experiments at LEP: ALEPH, DELPHI and L3. You can take an interactive tour of the particle adventure or you can be a particle detective identifying interesting particle physics interactions taken by OPAL.
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12 years of physics at OPALThe OPAL experiment and the LEP collider started operation in August 1989. Data taking finally ended on November 2, 2000. (`` The first and the last OPAL event''). The scientific evaluation of the data will continue for many more years.The two phases of LEP operation were:
The links above lead to descriptions of the physics objectives of OPAL, and to pictures of typical electron-positron collision events. |
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A cut-away view of the OPAL detector (photos from the installation). |
The OPAL detectorThe OPAL detector was a big general-purpose particle physics detector. OPAL took its name from the detector description: an Omni-Purpose Apparatus at LEP . You can take a tour of the detector.and the people working with itThe OPAL collaboration is a team of physicists and engineers who designed, built and ran the OPAL detector, and who analyse the data collected. Currently the collaboration consists of about 200 physicists from 34 institutes in Canada, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Israel, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. |