Tales from the lab beneath the Louvre

The Louvre’s particle accelerator has gone digital. The world’s most famous art museum has had a particle accelerator since the late 1980s, the crown jewel of a robust analytical laboratory dedicated to paintings, sculptures, and other cultural heritage artifacts. Major upgrades in recent years replaced all the optics, controls, and sensors—everything except the core acceleration module. The instrument can now fling protons, helium ions, and, soon, deuterons at priceless pieces of art to probe their elemental composition with all the precision and repeatability of modern vacuum science. The lab is called the Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, or C2RMF; it draws scientists looking to study art, just as the Mona Lisa , displayed 260 m to the east, draws more generalist art lovers. C2RMF’s star attraction is the Accélérateur Grand Louvre d’analyse élémentaire (AGLAE), which produces atomic emission spectra that enable researchers to tease out