Only official guides are authorized to bring visitors to ALICE. In order to become an ALICE guide, you have to be an ALICE member and you must subscribe to the ALICE guide training (1/2 day course at P2, please contact the ALICE LEXGLIMOS klaus.barth@cern.ch for any information). ALICE does not provide guides centrally (guiding activities are done on a voluntary basis).
Type of visits:
- Type 1: Surface only: during LHC operation, visits are possible to the surface installations at Point 2, notably the permanent exhibition and the ALICE Control Centre (ARC). The tour allows visitors to see the shaft at Point 2.
- Type 2: Surface + underground: these visits are normally possible only during LHC shutdown periods and are subject to the applicable ALICE operational and safety conditions. Private underground visits shall follow the predefined ALICE underground visitor path.
- Type 3: Visits organized by CERN Visits Service: The Visits Service organizes group visits to the ALICE exhibition. It is therefore preferable that private ALICE visits are organized outside the time slots reserved for CERN Visits Service activities. Please consult the visits calendar for current availability.
Procedure to register an ALICE private visit (type 1 or 2):
- The organizer must be registered at CERN, i.e. must have a CERN account.
- The organizer must check that the visits calendar allows a suitable visit programme which does not interfere with standard visits.
- Only qualified guides are permitted to use the exhibition remote control and to guide groups in the ALICE underground. It is up to the organizer to find an available guide.
- The organizer submits a request for an ALICE private visit, specifying that he/she wants to visit ALICE only. The request will come through to the ALICE Secretariat to organize. The organizer will receive a confirmation email once the visit has been approved.
- The organizer is asked to provide the information concerning the participants required by the CERN visitor registration process.
- The organizer will have to pick up and remit the visitor badges to the visitors, should they need one. The badges will be available at the applicable CERN reception.
- For an underground visit (type 2), an IMPACT request must be submitted. The qualified ALICE Underground Guide(s) conducting the visit shall be declared in the IMPACT. The visit may take place only once the IMPACT has been approved.
The procedure can be found here and more detailed information on how to submit the IMPACT request can be found here.
Important remarks for underground visits:
For safety reasons, one qualified ALICE Underground Guide can accompany a maximum of 12 visitors at the same time inside the Experiment. Up to 2 groups of 12 visitors can visit the underground areas at the same time, provided that there is one qualified ALICE Underground Guide per group.
Private underground visits shall follow the predefined ALICE underground visitor path. Deviation from or extension of this visitor path is not permitted for ALICE Private Guided Visits.
Please consider that the duration of the visit (e.g. from arrival to departure) must be adapted to the number of visitors:
- 1 to 24 visitors: 1 hour min
- 25 to 48 visitors: 2 hours min
- 49 to 72 visitors: 3 hours min
- 73 to 96 visitors: 4 hours min
For safety reasons the maximum number of visitors present at once on site (site capacity) is 96. Therefore groups larger than 96 must be split into two or more slots (e.g. morning, afternoon).
Important remarks for surface visits and Exhibition:
The maximum number of visitors and the applicable group organization shall respect the capacity limits defined for the corresponding ALICE surface visitor areas.
For non-ALICE members: in case one does not know anybody in ALICE who could make a guided tour, a mail could be sent to alice-und-guides-public@cern.ch, which addresses all the ALICE official guides who may volunteer for such a task (please remember to indicate the date, preferred language and number of visitors). For the exhibition, the voluntary guides can be contacted at ALICE-EXHIB-GUIDES@cern.ch.
For underground visits, the applicable age and other visitor restrictions depend on the radiological classification of the underground visitor path. When the visitor path is classified as a Supervised Radiation Area, visitors under 16 years old and pregnant women are not allowed to take part in an underground visit. When the visitor path has been formally declassified and is operated as a non-designated area, the general CERN requirements applicable to Private Guided Visits apply.
Visitors with implanted active electronic medical devices, such as pacemakers or insulin pumps, are not authorized in underground areas where prohibited due to magnetic stray fields.
The ALICE underground visitor path is not suitable for wheelchair users.
Note that for operational reasons your visit may be moved in time or, in extreme cases, cancelled at short notice.
ALICE is located at the following address:
CERN LHC2 - ALICE Experiment
14 Chemin de la Tatte
01630 Sergy, France
GPS coordinates: 46.250676, 6.021398