Accélérateur Grand Louvre d'analyse élémentaire (AGLAE) is a

particle accelerator A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel electric charge, charged particles to very high speeds and energies to contain them in well-defined particle beam, beams. Small accelerators are used for fundamental ...

housed by the Center for Research and Restoration of Museums of France in the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

museum in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It is used to study artworks by characterizing even trace elements composing them, and is the only particle accelerator solely dedicated to the study of cultural heritage. The accelerator in the Louvre -- The Accélérateur Grand Louvre d'analyse élémentaire solves ancient mysteries with powerful particle beams.
Glenn Roberts Jr. and Kelen Tuttle, Summetry Magazine, 14 May 2015, accessed 7 July 2015

Details

AGLAE is a Pelletron 2 MeV electrostatic accelerator built by an American company, the National Electrostatics Corporation, and has two sources: * a Duoplasmatron+ source that can produce hydrogen ions (protons), and * an Alpha source that can produce Helium ions (two protons and two

neutron The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , that has no electric charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. The Discovery of the neutron, neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932, leading to the discovery of nucle ...

s bound together into a particle identical to a

helium Helium (from ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic, inert gas, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is ...

nucleus). This produces protons with an energy up to 4 MeV and alphas up to 6 MeV.AGLAE
, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musees de France (C2RMF), accessed 7 July 2015 AGLAE was installed starting in 1987 and inaugurated in 1989. AGLAE is sited some 15m below the glass pyramid at the Louvre.

Use

AGLAE generates

proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , Hydron (chemistry), H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' (elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an e ...

s and

Alpha particle Alpha particles, also called alpha rays or alpha radiation, consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together into a particle identical to a helium-4 nucleus. They are generally produced in the process of alpha decay but may also be produce ...

s that are emitted outside the accelerator itself, enabling items of virtually any size or type to be examined. The particles, and their collision products, are detected to analyse the composition of the cultural items in the path of the particle beams. The techniques used at AGLAE include particle-induced

X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

and gamma-ray emission spectrometries. The data is used to determine the atomic constituents of the cultural items, including trace elements.

Detectors

AGLAE implements derived methods of analysis with two ion beams: * particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) * Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) * analysis by nuclear reactions (NRA), a variant is called GAUGE (gamma-induced charged particle emission) * elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA) * a spectrometer to record the ionoluminescence on the extracted beam line (IBIL)

Upgrade

AGLAE particle analysis techniques are limited in that they are not very effective for studying paintings because of a slight risk of damage. An upgrade (NEW AGLAE, using an ANR-10-EQPX-22) in progress in 2015 aims to produce a lower-power beam that will allow more sensitive detectors to overcome this issue, and allow 24-hour operation of the facility.

Directors

Dr Claire Pacheco - 2011-current

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:AGLAE Particle accelerators Louvre Palace