• Question: What does CMS stand for?

    Asked by emilie13 to Joel on 15 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Joel Goldstein

      Joel Goldstein answered on 15 Nov 2013:

      CMS stands for “Compact Muon Solenoid”. A muon is a particular type of subatomic particle that is quite easy to detect, and if you see one in an LHC collision it is a good indication that something interesting has happened. We therefore designed an experiment that is optimised to detect muons and measure their momentum by bending them in a magnetic field. This magnetic field is produced by a huge cylindrical electromagnet, or solenoid. The “compact” part is a bit of a joke as CMS is “only” 15 metres tall and weighs 14,000 tonnes, compared to our much bigger (but lighter) rival experiment called ATLAS.

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