One of the groups of visitors during the tour of the Neutrino Platform (Image: CERN)
CERN, the Prévessin-Moëns local authorities and the village’s municipal library joined forces to organise the event, which enabled local residents to find out more about what goes on inside the Laboratory, with a particular focus on neutrinos.
Neutrinos are invisible particles, almost devoid of mass, which pass through matter like ghosts and behave unexpectedly at the quantum level. Their identity-shifting ability could help answer some of the great mysteries surrounding the origins of the Universe.
The evening kicked off with a screening at the Prévessin-Moëns municipal library of the film Ghost Particle, directed by Geneva Guérin. This scientific documentary explores the research going on worldwide to trace the origins of the Universe by studying its tiniest components, neutrinos, in some of the biggest experiments in existence.
The film was followed by a tour of the Prévessin site guided by CERN scientists. The visitors got a chance to visit the CERN Control Centre and the Neutrino Platform, a facility where the international community of neutrino specialists is developing the next generation of neutrino detectors.
The platform, which is located in the commune of Prévessin-Moëns, is CERN’s main contribution to the DUNE experiment, a globally coordinated neutrino programme.
To find out more about this programme, check out the livestream video from the CERN Neutrino Platform, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Sanford Underground Research Facility:
https://videos.cern.ch/record/2298268.
For more information about the CERN Neutrino Platform, visit: https://home.cern/science/experiments/cern-neutrino-platform