The Compact
Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is a general purpose detector being constructed
at the LHC. CMS has been optimised for the search for the Standard
Model Higgs boson, the particle associated with
the still mysterious origin of mass. It is our main experiment over
the next 4 years and we are continuing to make important contributions to
the ECAL and Tracker
detectors, the trigger (GCT) system and software
and analysis preparations for physics discoveries.
The Large
Hadron Collider (LHC), is a new CERN accelerator due to begin operation in 2007. It will
collide protons at a centre-of-mass energy of 14 TeV and will be the highest energy machine in the world,
opening an exciting new window of discoveries in particle physics.
We contribute to two of the four main CMS reconstruction groups (e/gamma and b/tau)
and the Higgs analysis group. In the e/gamma group Imperial coordinates work on ECAL software and
analysis and electron and photon reconstruction. We also lead the Higgs group,
with work on Higgs decays, tau reconstruction channels and searches for extra dimensions.
Full details of our physics programme may be found here.
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Imperial has been involved in the CMS computing project since September 2001. In the last 4
years we have participated in every Monte Carlo (MC) production
round, initially using resources local to the group, then adding resources in the
London e-Science Centre and finally
Grid resources being shared over the EDG and latterly LCG
Grids. We were responsible for one of the first prototype CMS grid analysis programs, known as
GROSS. The functionality of
GROSS has now been split into two components, whereby the user interface is provided by
CRAB and the low level job
tracking functionality is handled by BOSS.
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The CMS Silicon Strip Tracker covers an area of 220 square metres and comprises
nearly 10 million microstrips. We have played a pivotal role in the development and
testing of numerous components of the readout system, including deep sub-micron
APV25 chips at the front-end, analogue
optical links and an off-detector
Front-End Driver (FED) processing module. The
objective is to deliver a complete, tested Tracker to Point 5 of the
LHC ring early in 2007.
10 Sept 2008 - First circulating beams in the LHC! IC report.
21 June 2006 - Jim Virdee, Professor of Physics in our group, elected as CMS Spokesperson from 2007.
Keep up to date with all CMS news with the CMS Times.
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CMS Outreach
Imperial CMS Photo Shoot March 2006
Tracker Outreach
Why not keep right up-to-date with new developments on our TWiki
pages ?
Also see the IC HEP Blog.
The ECAL is a scintillating crystal calorimeter that will
measure with great precision the energies of photons and electrons in the search for an
intermediate mass Higgs. Imperial has played a major role in the design, development and testing
of this crucial sub-detector, which comprises lead
tungsate crystals with APD and VPT readout. We took on a key role in the revision of the
ECAL electronics system in 2002.
The CMS GCT project is being led by at Imperial by Costas
Foudas. The design takes advantage of
the rapid evolution of programmable digital logic in the last few years and relies on a small number of
cards, and few, very powerful, FPGAs which incorporate high speed input-output facilities between
very large numbers of IO ports. The schedule is demanding, but is on target to be completed
during the second half of 2007.
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