The Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) is a particle accelerator at CERN. Originally specified as a 300 GeV proton machine, the SPS was actually built to be capable of 400GeV, an operating energy it achieved on the official commissioning date of 17 June 1976. However, by that time this energy had been exceeded by Fermilab, who reached 500GeV on May 14 of that year.

The SPS was designed by a team led by CERN director-general of what was then known as Laboratory II, Sir John Adams.

The SPS has also been used to accelerate antiprotons, electrons and positrons (for use as the injector for CERN's LEP electron-positron collider) and heavy ions. Its finest hour was undoubtedly as a proton-antiproton collider from 1981 to 1984, when its beams provided the data for the UA1 and UA2 experiments, which resulted in the discovery of the W and Z bosons, earning a Nobel Prize for Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer in 1984.

The SPS is now to be used as the final pre-injector for high-intensity proton beams for CERN's Large Hadron Collider, scheduled to begin operation in 2007, accelerating protons from 26GeV to 450GeV. The SPS will also be used to produce a neutrino stream to be detected at the Italian Gran Sasso laboratory, 730 km from CERN.

Particle physics facilities | Particle experiments

Super Proton Synchrotron | Super Proton Synchrotron