CMS
Cornell is a member of the CMS collaboration and its US subgroup USCMS. CMS is one of the large detectors being built at the LHC at the CERN particle physics lab in Geneva, Switzerland.Experimental Activities
A view of the CMS detector, which is currently under construction.
Pixel Calibration
CMS's pixel detector has more than 60 million channels. We take part in calibrating this detector and writing DAQ software for managing the application of the calibration constants during running.EM Calorimeter
Cornell has a long history with CsI calorimeters in CLEO. We will carry this experience to the LHC in helping calibrate and align the CMS CsI electromagnetic calorimeter. In addition, we are developing software that helps to identify electrons.Core Software
CMS started a rewrite of its core software in 2005. Cornell has been heavily involved in the design and implentation of the new framework, called CMS SW. We are also collaborating with the Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing to build a toolset to allow CMS scientists to better design analyses that deal with large data sets.Trigger
Work has just begun to address questions on both the hardware and the software trigger level. Contributing to all aspects of trigger monitoring allows us to develop an in-depth understanding of the trigger hardware and its performance.Physics Challenges
In addition to these projects, we are involved in physics studies for what we can do with the first data coming out of the LHC when the first physics data comes arrives in 2008. Among the topics we are interested in is "Beyond the Standard Model" physics such as Supersymmetry, extra dimension and the mystery of dark matter. CMS will also be a great place to study the top quark in great detail (which some of us are already doing at CDF at Fermilab) and looking for Higgs bosons, in either a Standard Model flavor or whatever new Higgs Nature throws at us.
Supported by the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy
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