This is a list of past and current experiments at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) facility since its commissioning in 1976. The SPS was used as the main particle collider for many experiments, and has been adapted to various purpose ever since its inception. Four locations were used for experiments, the North Area (NA experiments), West Area (WA experiments), Underground Area (UA experiments), and the Endcap MUon detectors (EMU experiments).
The UA1 and UA2 experiments famously detected the W and Z bosons in the early 1980s. Following this, Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer won the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The list is first compiled from the INSPIRE-HEP database, then missing information is retrieved from the online version CERN's Grey Book. The most specific information of the two is kept, e.g. if the INSPIRE database lists November 1974, while the Grey Book lists 22 November 1974, the Grey Book entry is shown. When there is a conflict between the INSPIRE database and the Grey Book, the INSPIRE database information is listed, unless otherwise noted.
EMU experiments EMU = endcap muon +EMU experimentsExperimentCodenameSpokespersonDescriptionProposedApprovedBeganCompletedLinkWebsite — Ingvar Otterlund Study of particle production and nuclear fragmentation in collisions of 16O beams with emulsion nuclei at 13–200 A GeV ?? INSPIREGrey Book Website — P. Buford Price Search for fractionally charged nuclei in high-energy oxygen–lead collisions ?? INSPIREGrey Book — — M. El-Nadi Interactions of 16O projectile and 32S and their fragments in nuclear emulsions at about 60 and 200 GeV/nucleon INSPIREGrey Book — — T. A. Parnell Measurement of Coulomb cross section for production of direct electron pairs by high energy ions at the CERN SPS ?? INSPIREGrey Book — — Y. Takahashi Study of extremely short-range particle correlations in high-energy ion collisions ?? INSPIREGrey Book — — Alberto Conti Study of the production mechanisms and decay properties of charmed particles observed in nuclear emulsions coupled to the NA14 spectrometer ?? INSPIREGrey Book — — John P. Wefel Interactions of 60–200 GeV/nucleon 16O and 32S (Pb) nuclei in light and heavy absorbers INSPIREGrey Book — — Piyare L. Jain Study of particle production in relativistic heavy-ion collisions ?? INSPIREGrey Book — — Giorgio Romano An emulsion hybrid setup for the study of sulphur–nucleus collisions at 200 GeV/nucleon INSPIREGrey Book — — Hidehiko Itoh Study of event structures of 200 GeV/nucleon 32S interactions with nuclei by the Magnetic Emulsion Spectrometer at the CERN SPS INSPIREGrey Book — — Piyare L. Jain Study of particle production and nuclear fragmentation in relativistic heavy ion collisions in nuclear emulsion INSPIREGrey Book — — Ingvar Otterlund Particle production, density fluctuations, and break up of dense nuclear matter in central Pb–Ag and Pb–Pb interactions at 60–100 A GeV INSPIREGrey Book Website — Władysław Wolter Interactions of 160 GeV/nucleon 207Pb nuclei in emulsion chambers with copper and lead targets INSPIREGrey Book — — Dilip Kumar Ghosh Study of multiplicity and angular characteristics in Pb+A interaction at 200 A GeV/c INSPIREGrey Book — — Konstantin Aleksandrovich Kotelnikov Investigation of central Pb–Pb interactions at energies of 160 GeV/nucleon with the help of the Emulsion Magnetic Chamber INSPIREGrey Book — — Y. Takahashi Isospin correlations in high energy Pb–Pb interactions INSPIREGrey Book — — Wolfgang Heinrich Fragmentation of Pb projectiles at SPS energies ?? INSPIREGrey Book — — Giorgio Giacomelli Exposures Of CR39 stacks to lead ions at the CERN SPS INSPIREGrey Book — — H. A. Khan Nuclear fragmentation induced by relativistic projectiles studied in the 4-π configuration of plastic track detectors INSPIREGrey Book — — H. A. Khan Antiproton induced fission studies with plastic track detectors using 4-π geometry INSPIREGrey Book —
NA experiments NA = north area +NA experimentsExperimentCodenameSpokespersonDescriptionProposedApprovedBeganCompletedLinkWebsite Lorenzo Foa Measurement of the photoproduction of vector and scalar bosons Recordon INSPIRE