During the CERN pilot beams at the end of October, for the first time CMS has reconstructed online the LHC collision data with Graphic Processing Units (GPUs). At CMS, the High Level Trigger (HLT) is responsible for analysing in…

The Higgs boson is peculiar in many respects. Like most other elementary particles, it is unstable and lives only for an extremely short time, 1.6 x 10-22 seconds, according to the established theory of particle physics (the standard model). Pretty…

As the end of Long Shutdown 2 (LS2) is getting closer, CERN along with the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is preparing to welcome the most awaited Run 3 next year. The CMS experiment geared up for the two weeks of CERN pilot beams in…

CERN’s most ambitious emergency response exercise to date took place on 13 November at LHC Point 5, with the involvement of French, Swiss and CERNois safety and rescue teams   It is a peaceful Saturday morning in Cessy, France. Thick autumn…

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been providing particle collisions at larger and larger luminosities over the years, thanks to a series of upgrades. However, the most anticipated upgrade has yet to come: the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). Here…

The Higgs boson, once the sought-after holy grail of particle physics, has now been with us for almost a decade.  By now physicists are able to use the Higgs boson itself as a tool for the next discovery beyond the standard model. …

Apart from the “World Wide Web,” three Ws may also have a different interpretation in the LHC era. The standard model of particle physics is a mathematical construct that connects three of the four fundamental forces of nature and classifies all…

The standard model of particle physics is our current best theory to describe the most basic building blocks of the universe, the elementary particles, and the interactions among them. At the heart of the standard model is a hypothesis describing…

After the Higgs boson discovery in the year 2012, the standard model of particle physics offers a complete and consistent description of elementary particle interactions that, despite the many attempts, has not been falsified by experimental…

The focus of Run Coordination during Long Shutdown 2 (LS2) is to organize regular detector-commissioning periods which help to closely monitor the advance of maintenance and upgrade activities, to smooth interactions between subsystems. This ensures…

As physicists seek the elusive particles that may reveal a new understanding of the universe’s inner workings, one intriguing possibility is the conceivable existence of new particles that live in a shadow universe, called the “dark sector.” The…

After long months of preparations, the Beam Radiation, Instrumentation, and Luminosity (BRIL) group has completed the installation of three instruments dedicated to the measurement of luminosity and beam conditions: the Beam Condition Monitor “Fast…