CTF3
electron accelerator facility built at CERN
CTF3 (CLIC Test Facility 3) was an electron accelerator facility built at CERN with the aim of demonstrating the key concepts of the Compact Linear Collider accelerator. The facility consisted in two electron beamlines to mimic the functionalities of the CLIC Drive Beam and Main Beam. The facility stopped its operation in December 2016, and one of its beamlines has been converted into the new CERN Linear Electron Accelerator for Research (CLEAR) facility.
The facility used the former assets of the LEP Pre-Injector (LPI) accelerator complex. LPI was primarily used to inject electrons and positrons into the CERN accelerator complex, to be ultimately delivered to Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP). Following the LEP shut down in 2000, LPI ceased to provide beams to experiments (LPI provided beams directly to some experiments independent of LEP) in April 2001. Then work begun to convert LPI facility to be used for the CTF3. The conversion happened in stages, with the first stage (so-called preliminary phase) starting accelerator commissioning in September 2001. In the following years, LPI morphed into CTF3.
This page provides a general description of the facility with references to its main experimental program.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “CTF3” is electron accelerator facility built at CERN. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through CTF3, electron and accelerator, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “electron accelerator facility built at CERN” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 3, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q25203996. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2016, 2000 and 2001.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “CTF3”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow CTF3 primary sources, CTF3 archive and CTF3 research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “CTF3” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.