Nationaal Instituut voor Subatomaire Fysica

Nikhef is the Dutch National Institute for Subatomic Physics. The institute performs research into the elementary building blocks of our Universe, their mutual forces and the structure of space and time. Research at Nikhef focuses on accelerator-based particle physics and astroparticle physics. Nikhef coordinates and leads the Dutch experimental activities in these fields and is a partnership between the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and five Dutch universities.

Nikhef participates in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, notably ATLAS, LHCb and ALICE. Astroparticle physics activities at Nikhef are fourfold, namely participating in: the ANTARES and KM3NeT neutrino telescope projects in the Mediterranean Sea; the Pierre Auger Observatory for cosmic rays, located in Argentina; gravitational-wave detection via the Virgo interferometer in Italy, and the direct search for Dark Matter with the XENON detector in the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy. Detector R&D, design and construction take place at the laboratory located at Amsterdam Science Park as well as at the participating universities. Data analyses make extensive use of large-scale computing at the Tier-1 grid facility operated jointly by Nikhef and SURFsara. The Nikhef theory group has its own research programme while being in close contact with the experimental groups.

The research at Nikhef relies on the development of innovative technologies. The knowledge and technology transfer to third parties is an integral part of Nikhef’s mission.