MODEL RELEASED. ATLAS detector toroid. ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) is one of six detector experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. It has eight toroids, one of which is seen here, that generate the magnetic field needed to confine the particles. ATLAS is a broad-range detector that measures all particles and physical processes that emerge during proton collision within the LHC. The LHC is designed to create high energy substances, such as quark-gluon plasma, thought to have existed very early in the history of the universe. The LHC is scheduled to start operating in May 2008.