DESY is one of the world’s leading accelerator centres. Founded in Hamburg in 1959, and named for its first project (the Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron), DESY hosted the PETRA storage ring, where the gluon was discovered, and the HERA collider, where the structure of the proton was studied with unprecedented precision. Research at DESY now focuses on four areas: accelerators, photon science, particle physics, and astroparticle physics.
CERN Courier laboratory correspondent: Till Mundzeck
Read article 'Plasma acceleration under the microscope'
DESY researchers have measured the energy evolution of an electron bunch inside a laser-plasma accelerator for the first time.
Read article 'Volker Soergel 1931–2022'
Volker Soergel headed DESY in 1981–1993, overseeing construction of the HERA electron–proton storage ring.
Read article 'The axion search programme at DESY'
Watch this webinar now to explore the ongoing axion search activities at DESY
Read article 'DESY’s innovation ecosystem delivers impact for industry'
Djamschid Safi explains how big science is helping European companies to fast-track the development of innovative products, services and applications.
Read article 'Hymn to HERMES'
The former HERMES experiment at DESY, a pioneer in unravelling the mysteries of the proton spin, is the protagonist in a new book by Richard Milner and Erhard Steffens.
Read article 'First light beckons at SLAC’s LCLS-II'
An ambitious upgrade of the US flagship X-ray free-electron laser rests on sustained cooperation with high-energy physics labs in the US, Europe and Japan.
Read article 'New directions at DESY'
Beate Heinemann describes the latest activities at DESY and the importance of demonstrating the wider benefits of particle physics.
Read article 'Beate Heinemann appointed director at DESY'
DESY's first female director will lead the lab's high-energy physics division from 1 February.
Read article 'Loop Summit convenes in Como'
The workshop explored new perturbative results and methods in quantum field theory, collider physics and gravity.
Read article 'Tord Riemann 1951–2021'
Riemann promoted the application of the ZFITTER project at LEP.
Read article 'Strong interest in feeble interactions'
The FIPs 2020 workshop was structured around portals that may link the Standard Model to a rich dark sector: axions, dark photons, dark scalars and heavy neutral leptons.
Read article 'Terascale summer school goes global'
DESY physicists reimagined a socially distanced event with virtues that may merit consideration after the pandemic too.