The Latest from CMS

CMS is on track to be ready for physics one month in advance of the LHC restart. The final installations are being completed and tests are being run to ensure that the experiment is as well prepared as possible to exploit sustained LHC operation throughout 2010.

Physics week in Bologna, Italy, was a valuable time for CMS collaborators to discuss preparations for numerous physics analyses, as well as the performance of the detector during the recent data-taking period with cosmics (CRAFT 09). During this five-week exercise, more than 300 million cosmic events were recorded with the magnetic field on. This large data-set is being used to further improve the sub-detector alignment, calibration and performance whilst awaiting p-p collisions.

Meanwhile, in the experimental cavern, Wolfram Zeuner, Deputy Technical Coordinator of CMS, reports "We are now very nearly closed up again. We are just doing the final clean-up work and are ready to close the rotating shielding which is the last step in making the detector ready for beam. We still have to make a few tests of the magnet and the magnet monitoring system to validate improvements made after the CRAFT experience. Everything is on track and will be ready one month in advance of the beam. This extra time will be used to pump down the beam-pipe to establish operating vacuum, and to exercise and improve the operation of the detector. The current break in magnet operation has allowed some major projects to be completed. Full maintenance of the cooling system has been performed in anticipation of continuous operation until autumn 2010, and a lot of work has also been done to optimise the magnetic and radiation shielding in the forward hadron calorimeter (HF) region."

With the 2008-2009 shutdown and re-commissioning exercise successfully completed, CMS is eager to find out what Nature has in store at the LHC.

CMS Collaboration