ZEUS

ZEUS was a particle detector at the HERA (Hadron Elektron Ring Anlage) particle accelerator at the German national laboratory DESY in Hamburg. It began taking data in 1992 and was operated until HERA was decommissioned in June 2007. The scientific collaboration behind ZEUS consisted of about 400 physicists and technicians from 56 institutes in 17 countries. The ZEUS detector comprised many different detector components, including a depleted uranium plastic-scintillator calorimeter, a central tracking detector (which was a wire chamber), a silicon microvertex detector and muon chambers. In addition, a solenoid provided a magnetic field. The ZEUS detector measured 12 m × 11 m × 20 m and weighed 3600 tons. Like its partner experiment H1, the ZEUS experiment studied the internal structure of the proton through measurements of deep inelastic scattering by colliding leptons (electrons or positrons) with protons in the interaction point of ZEUS. These measurements were also used to test and study the Standard Model of particle physics as well as to search for particles beyond the Standard Model, laying the foundation to much of the science done at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN particle physics laboratory today. Background The German national laboratory DESY was founded in 1959 and started operating its first particle accelerator in 1964. Since then, it has been a highly regarded center for particle physics, photon science, astroparticle physics, and the development, construction and operation of particle accelerators. The design effort for ZEUS can be traced back to 1982. A Letter of Intent was submitted in 1985. The ZEUS detector was operational with the first collisions of the HERA collider in 1992. The last electron–proton collisions at ZEUS were recorded on 30 June 2007. The other multi-purpose experiment at the HERA collider was the competing H1 experiment. Since May 2012, the former ZEUS detector hall has been used as a lab space for the international European XFEL project.