U.S. CMS Operations at the Large Hadron Collider

Researchers in high energy physics seek to understand the fundamental nature of matter and the basic forces through which it interacts. One way they do this is by observing what happens when counter-rotating beams of protons collide. The characteristics of the debris produced in the collisions can reveal the basic physics of fundamental particles and the forces between them.

Highly sophisticated particle detectors and analysis methods are required to measure these characteristics. NSF provides funding to U.S. researchers to conduct research in experimental high energy physics using the CMS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s premier laboratory for this research. In addition to directly supporting research activities, NSF will provide, via this award, funding to twenty US universities to maintain the operation of U.S.-supplied components of the CMS detector and its supporting software and computing systems, develop new software tools, and install and commission detector enhancements in preparation for more intense operation planned to commence in 2027.

This award will also promote science education and promote diverse participation in research. The Large Hadron Collider is located at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva Switzerland.

U.S. participation in CMS will stimulate the development of a scientific and technically educated workforce, advancing the multidisciplinary application of technology, and the popularization and dissemination of science to the general public. The award will support activities that provide opportunities to develop and maintain complex detector apparatus, custom analog and digital electronics and software systems for data management, and to support data processing and technical analyses of detector systems.

Technical professionals are required to perform many of these tasks, increasing the expertise of the U.S. work force. The operation of existing detector components, design of upgrade components, and related research activities create opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration among university physics personnel, university personnel in engineering departments, and physics department technical personnel as physicists, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers and computer scientists work with post-docs and students.

Similarly, physics personnel will work closely with computing professionals at their home institutions and at national laboratories to support the various software and computing activities.

Technical part: This award supports the development and operation of the instrumentation and analysis tools that are essential to studying debris from proton-proton collisions. These tools are essential for answering basic, foundational questions, such as “What is the origin of mass of the elementary particles?” The Higgs Boson discovery, a physical manifestation of the mechanism that generates elementary particle masses, led to the 2013 Physics Nobel Prize that was awarded to Peter Higgs and Francois Englert.

Is that the end of the story, or are there other, as-of-yet undiscovered, contributions to this process? Other fundamental questions, equally important, may have answers that depend, at least in part, on the physics observed through the continued operation and analysis of data obtained from the LHC. “What is the dark matter that accounts for 25% of the mass of the universe?

Can dark matter be produced and observed at the LHC? Can evidence of extra dimensions predicted in some models be found at LHC energies? Are there particles with exotic properties, unlike any forms of matter observed so far, whose existence is predicted by some theories that extend the standard model of elementary particles?” In each case, answering the question requires the aggregation of large amounts of data from which to draw meaningful statistical inferences.

This award will enable researchers to double the amount of data collected for analysis and investigations of these phenomena. It will enable preparations that will lead to future collection of about ten times the currently available data.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.