CMS develops and deploys a new machine-learning technique based on neural networks that is able to spot existing and developing anomalies in the functioning of the detector. In the quest to uncover the fundamental particles and forces of nature, one…

How to manage large amounts of data without losing any interesting ones? The selection of data concerning particle collisions in the LHC is critical since it will determine all the resulting analyses. This is the decisive work of a novel scouting…

The first wafers of the CMS Read Out Chip (CROC) for the High Luminosity Pixel detector have been produced and tested, marking a major milestone for the next generation CMS Tracker. Each silicon wafer contains 136 chips that are built to withstand…

How an evacuation of the CMS experimental cavern has provided invaluable human behaviour data to improve the emergency preparedness for complex underground facilities. CERN and CMS strive for excellence in safety matters, with a commitment to…

Above: Test bench for time resolution measurement of LYSO arrays coupled with SiPMs In the last few weeks, the first batch of Ce:LYSO crystals, a type of scintillating crystals, has been delivered to the Sapienza University of Rome ready for…

  Welcome back to the mini-series about waking up the CMS detector after the YETS - Year End Technical Shutdown. As spring approaches, it is time to turn all parts of the CMS detector back on and make sure everything is functioning smoothly for…

In the same way that loud background noise does not allow us to listen to a conversation or appreciate a piece of music, so too the CMS detector needs a quiet environment to optimize data taking and analysis.   New shielding has been…

In this short series, we look at the different types of tests and steps needed for CMS to run at the precision the experiment requires. Find part 1 here! Part 2 First Beam Arrives So far, the only tests and alignments that have taken place have…

It is compelling to picture large physics labs with lots of sparks and heavy levers that wake up big, important experiments with sparks and loud bangs. Even if this were the case, CMS is too big and too complex to be started up by a simple pull of a…

  CMS has recently conducted the largest deletion campaign in its history, deleting roughly 85 Petabytes (85’000’000’000’000’000 bytes) of data from the magnetic tapes, in order to free up space for the Run 3 collisions. No original raw data…

  Data taking is restarting in CMS for the continuation of Run 3 - and with it the enormous responsibility of keeping the data safe and making sure it is usable in order to conduct the physics analyses. Last April 2023, the Large Hadron…

  Everything started in early September 2022 while, during the ECAL Operations meeting that we hold every Wednesday morning, our veteran electronics expert, Evgueni, reported that the voltage in a control card was unstable. He prophetically…