Science

Fermilab and the LHC

The Large Hadron Collider is the largest, most powerful particle accelerator in the world. It steers beams of particles on a collision course around a 17-mile ring located 300 feet beneath the border of Switzerland and France. Experiments at the LHC seek a greater understanding of nature by searching for new phenomena and particles—such as the recently discovered Higgs boson—and by investigating the properties of the particles and forces we know.

For almost two decades, Fermilab and its scientists have played a significant role in the LHC and particularly in the CMS experiment. Fermilab also provides scientific, technical and organizational support for the 630 scientists and graduate students from 47 US universities and laboratories that participate in the 2,600-member international CMS collaboration.

Scientists working on the CMS experiment, together with scientists from the ATLAS experiment, announced the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. Today they continue their forefront research, using particle collisions to investigate the properties of the Higgs boson and other particles and forces.

When accelerated particles collide in the LHC, their energy converts briefly to mass, which can produce particles not seen in abundance since just after the big bang. These particles quickly decay, releasing their energy in the form of lighter particles, which themselves may decay into even lighter particles. All of this takes place in a split second, but CMS and three other giant particle detectors built around the LHC collision points record data that allow scientists to piece together what happened. The LHC collides hundreds of millions of particles per second. Scientists create software that selects only the most interesting collisions, and they use those collisions to pick out difficult-to-uncover particles and phenomena.

Fermilab participated in the construction of the LHC accelerator and the CMS detector, contributing critical components such as the powerful magnets that focus beams into collision and many segments of the complex, 13,000-ton CMS detector. Fermilab scientists and engineers, in close collaboration with other US research groups, are also actively building components for and conducting R&D towards future LHC accelerator and detector upgrades.

Fermilab hosts one of 11 Tier-1 computing centers that process data for the CMS experiment and support the research activities of scientists across the country and around the world. It also hosts a Remote Operations Center, where more than 100 scientists conduct thousands of hours of remote shifts for the CMS experiment each year, and the LHC Physics Center, a hub for CMS physics in the United States.

CMS

CMS is one of the two general-purpose experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at the European physics laboratory CERN. The CMS detector investigates the results of particle collisions in search of new insights into the building blocks of the universe.

LHC Physics Center

The LHC Physics Center is a central location for physicists to participate in LHC research in the United States. It serves as a resource and analysis hub for the 630 physicists and graduate students from 47 US universities and laboratories that participate in the CMS experimental collaboration.

LHC Remote Operations Center

The LHC Remote Operations Center supports the operations of the CMS detector located 4,000 miles away in Cessy, France. The ROC allows US physicists and students to take detector monitoring shifts during US daytime hours, lessening the burden on CERN-based scientists to serve night shifts and helping US personnel fulfill their operational responsibilities in the CMS collaboration from an on-shore location.