LHC-PHYS · Early discoveries at the LHC with the CMS silicon strip tracker
FP6 — Marie Curie Actions (Human Resources and Mobility)
- Duration
- 2006-12-01 → 2008-11-30
- EU contribution
- €93,655
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- EIF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Final Activity Report Summary - LHC-PHYS (Early discoveries at the LHC with the CMS silicon strip tracker)
This project was related to the largest and most powerful particle accelerator ever built, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. In this 27-kilometre ring-shaped accelerator, protons of an energy of 7 TeV will be collided head-on in four different locations, where dedicated experiments have been built. The project concerned one of these experiments, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment. The original goal of this project was related to detector operation and analysis of the first data collected by CMS. However, due to repeated delays no real LHC data could be analysed. Thus, the focus has been on the preparation for the analysis of the first LHC data, in particular the detection of particles called quarkonia, decaying with a large branching fraction into two muons, which can be detected precisely in CMS. On the one hand, some characteristics of these particles, like their mass, are already accurately known from previous experiments, and hence they are extremely useful for issues like detector calibration and alignment. On the other hand, the underlying physics production mechanism is still not well understood. During the project, different studies were performed on how to shed light on their production mechanism. It resulted in presentations in international conferences and publications. In addition, still using quarkonia, studies were performed on how to extract the muon efficiency at low transverse momenta.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is one of four high-energy physics experiments presently in the final stages of construction to operate at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) facility at CERN, Geneva.In 2007 the LHC will produce head on collisions between 7 TeV protons, making it the most powerful accelerator ever built. One of the main motivations to built the LHC is its potential to discover new physics at the TeV scale that is strongly expected given the current experimental and theoretical panorama in particle physicsA wide range of these theoretical new physics models predicts the existence of stable very heavy electromagnetically charged particles, produced in quantities which would be detectable at early stages of the running of the LHC.The most vital detector in the CMS experiment for the discovery and study of such particles is the silicon strip tracker, where they would leave high momentum tracks and deposit a much higher energy than light particles, allowing identification.The main goal of the this project is to discover stable heavy electromagnetically charged particles, associated with new physics, using the CMS silicon strip tracker. To achieve this, the applicant will play a leading role in the operation and calibration of the silicon strip tracker, the latter fundamental for the data analysis.The experience will be used to model in detail the response of the tracker to charged heavy particles. This will be used to perform an analysis of the early LHC data to search for new heavy charged particles. Currently the applicant has experience with analyses concerning detection of heavy particles, but she has a limited amount of hardware experience.Being part of the CMS Pisa group would allow her to gain this (crucial) experience, to participate in one of the most exciting collaborations in particle physics, and to perform an extremely interesting data analysis.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- ISTITUTO NAZIONALE DI FISICA NUCLEARE · FRASCATICoordinatorItaly
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union