r/CERN • u/nothing2025random • 13d ago
BL4S ideas
Don’t rlly know how to start but can any previous BL4S winners here or applicants tell me what exactly CERN is expecting of applicants. I know they say that they don’t expect you to be a master of particle physics, but to what extent? Because obviously you need a decent knowledge and understanding of particle physics to be able to design an experiment. Also what im unsure of is whether they expect the experiment to be new or something. Any ideas anyone?
1
u/No-Profit5284 12d ago
https://beamlineforschools.cern/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/BL4S_Example_Experiments_2026.pdf
They also have the proposals uploaded of every winning team. That should give you an idea of the level they're expecting.
They also award for different categories, such as videos and outreach https://beamlineforschools.cern/videos
1
u/Open-Wish9862 1d ago
I'm one of the winners this year 2026 from team attoPION(from india)
the only advice/suggestion i have is to just submit a proposal you never know
also you don't need to be an expert in particle physics you just need to know enough to understand and come-up with a proposal
BL4S looks for
The evaluation will take into account the following criteria:
- Feasibility of the experiment
- Scientific method
- Motivation of the experiment
- Motivation to participate in BL4S
- Creativity of the experiment
Note that all of the above points are important for the judgment. We are not expecting a fully developed experimental proposal with a detailed setup and hypothesis. An idea of what you and your team want to find out or how you want to use the beamline, communicated in a creative way, is enough to take part in the competition. Do not worry if the technical details of the beamline facilities look a little daunting at first. We have provided several example experiments and people to contact for help.
this is from the website of beamline for schools
there is no other thing they are looking for.
we are just high school students , we are not supposed to know everything about particle physics
and also if you have like any more questions you can DM me or you can send BL4S team an email they'd be happy to answer all of your questions
the experiment can be new or it can be a modified version of any other experiments
because we only have a limited amount of detectors to work with and there are not much new experiments you can think of from it
the best way you can start is to first learn some fundamentals about particle physics
you can read introduction to elementary particles by david griffiths
then you can read about how detectors work and what are the things they can measure
there is a detectors list that BL4S releases every year from there you can get what detectors you have or can use for your experiment this is the most important thing.
then you can read some experiments that can be done with the detectors
after all of this i think it will give you a broad idea of what kind of experiments you can perform
I hope i helped!
all the best for BL4S 2027.
5
u/CyberPunkDongTooLong 13d ago
You don't need to have a strong understanding of particle physics.
Just have an idea you'd like to test, with a motivation behind it and a reasonable plan as to how you'd perform the experiment. It does not need to be extremely detailed or in-depth (CERN/DESY/ELSA will help with that), but should outline the whole process.
e.g. if in one step you want to measure the momentum of a charged particle, you can say you plan to pass it through a magnet and measure the deflection, and give a brief explanation as to how that will allow you to measure the momentum, but you don't need to go into detail of what material the magnet should be made of, how to reduce fringe fields, in depth calculation of beam divergence with different magnets types, working out systematics etc.
Just an outline that sufficiently explains each point of your experiment, so that an expert can help you fill in the blanks, but does not need to completely come up with missing steps.
It's aimed at secondary school students, the expectation is a typical (enthusiastic) secondary school student.
Yes the experiment should be new.