Desy

DESY

DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-SYnchrotron) is a German physics research institute. It has two main sites - the first in Hamburg, where around 2000 people work and the second in Zeuthen, where approx. 200 people are based. It is a member of the Helmholtz Research Associaction and was founded in Hamburg on December 18, 1959. It is the largest physics institute in Europe, outside of CERN in Geneva.

DESY's purpose (taken from the DESY webpage) is:

Specific research in the natural sciences with special emphasis on: - development, construction and operation of accelerator facilities - particle physics (investigation of the fundamental properties of matter and forces) - research with photons (investigations in all fields of natural sciences using a special light generated at accelerators.)

DESY is situated atop a particle accelerator called HERA, which runs beneath the city of Hamburg. There are three large experiments on the HERA ring: ZEUS, H1 and HERMES. A fourth, called HERA-B was discontinued in February 2003. There are other, smaller accelerators at DESY, but none that can match the power of HERA, which accelerates electrons to 27.5 GeV, making it the most powerful accelerator in Europe at the time of writing. (CERN is still being upgraded.) DESY also hosts HASYLAB - a collaboration that focuses research on Synchrotrons.

DESY has a large international population - scientists based in the following countries work at DESY:

Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, The Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Ukraine, The United States of America.

More information on DESY can be found at DESY's official website. It is available in both English and German.