gigapanorama of NA 62 cavern

The image shows the new rare Kaon decay experiment at CERN, called NA62. The NA62 experiment is 270 metres long and includes a 120-metre-long vacuum tank, shown here, housing several of the particle detectors. (Note: the experiment axis is a straight line, the curving of the tank is an optical effect of the photo.) Kaons are particles that decay into lighter elementary particles. The kaon decay processes are mostly well known, except for some very rare decay modes. For example, NA62 is investigating a rare decay predicted by the Standard Model in which a kaon decays into one pion and two neutrinos. This process occurs only once every 10 billion decays. The understanding of such ultra-rare decays are of great importance because they test the Standard Model in energy ranges not accessible by direct measurements. They are therefore complementary to the measurements at the LHC. ultra high definition on demand (photolab@cern.ch).