U.S. CMS Operations at the LHC

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

The goal of CMS Experiment is to realize the physics discoveries made possible by the U.S. investment of the NSF and the DOE in building the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. This is a multi-year program to maintain and operate the U.S.-supplied systems of the CMS detector and to maintain and continue to strengthen the software, computing and collaborative infrastructure of U.S. universities working on the CMS experiment. Intellectual Merit: The LHC will open a new regime in particle physics up to and beyond the TeV energy scale, made accessible for the first time by a combination of high luminosity of 1034cm 2s 1 and the proton-proton center of mass energy of 14 TeV. The unprecedented energy range and luminosity of this new particle accelerator, combined with the special capabilities of the CMS experiment for particle detection and measurement, are expected to lead to discoveries of new elementary particles and novel behaviors of the fundamental forces. Such discoveries could have revolutionary effects on our understanding of the unification of forces, the origin and stability of matter, the ultimate underpinnings of the observable universe, and the nature of space-time itself. The LHC, which is now being constructed by a global collaboration of thousands of physicists and engineers, will commence operation in 2007 with a scientific program that will continue for many years. U.S. physicists, who constitute approximately 30% of collaborating CMS physicists from 38 countries, are mostly based at U.S. universities. This fact underlies the basis of our proposal, namely that in order to exploit fully the ambitious and rich scientific program at the LHC, researchers at U.S. universities, including graduate students excited by the prospects of major discoveries, must have the resources required for full participation in all phases of the scientific program during the LHC operational period. This enabling effort provides for crucial university infrastructure beyond that available from each agency's core high energy physics programs, while building on the proven successes of the U.S. CMS Construction Project. There are two main categories, Detector Maintenance and Operations (M&O) and Software and Computing (S&C). Also included in M&O are detector upgrade research and development (R&D), and education and outreach (E&O), both critical parts of the long-term exploitation of the CMS detector. The Broader Impact of the LHC research includes advances in technology in several areas, support for university scientific infrastructure, and the opportunity to attract students and the general public to exciting frontier science. Numerous outreach and education possibilities exist that are already being implemented in programs such as QuarkNet. Extensive computer networks are being built as collaborative tools for the LHC, and they can also be used to share the excitement of discovery with noncollaborators. The CMS detector contains a variety of subsystems with numerous technological challenges in areas such as radiation hardness of materials and circuits, precision measurement of ionizing radiation, precision alignment, large high-density crystal growing, high-density inter-connecting of electrical signals, large high-magnetic field volumes, and many aspects of computing and data transfer. CMS institutions, often working with industry, have made or implemented innovations in these areas and R&D continues as part of this program. As a result of the international nature of LHC research, many of these advances are developed and shared with collaborators from other countries to mutual benefit, including less developed countries in Latin America and elsewhere.