Active Physics & Astronomy Engineering

CMS Phase 2 Upgrade Project

Funder STFC (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation Imperial College London
Funding £1.9M
Period Mar 2025 — Mar 2027

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

The CMS detector at CERN is getting a comprehensive overhaul to keep working as the Large Hadron Collider smashes particles at ever-higher intensities. This matters because the LHC remains the world’s only facility capable of probing the most pressing questions in fundamental physics—such as the nature of dark matter and the precise behaviour of the Higgs boson. Without these upgrades, the detector would be overwhelmed by the harsher conditions created by the accelerator’s increased performance, and the scientific return from the LHC would stop. The project will deliver new tracking, calorimetry, and trigger systems. If successful, it will allow CMS to record a much larger data set, enabling measurements of Higgs couplings and self-couplings, and greatly improving sensitivity to physics beyond the Standard Model. This is fundamental science with no immediate practical application. However, past investments in particle physics have led to breakthroughs such as the World Wide Web and medical imaging technologies. A deeper understanding of the universe’s basic building blocks could similarly open unexpected doors.

View original technical description
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will be the world's highest energy particle accelerator for the foreseeable future, and the only facility capable of investigating some of the highest priority topics in fundamental physics. The UK has made a substantial long-term commitment to the design, construction and operation of the CMS detector, one of the two general-purpose detectors at the LHC. LHC operation will continue until at least 2035, with ever-increasing performance required from both the accelerator complex in order to provide useful statistical reach. The CMS detector will in turn require significant and comprehensive upgrades in order to maintain performance in the presence of much harsher conditions. The upgrades described in this proposal are mandatory to allow scientific return from the LHC to continue in the long term. We propose a technically ambitious five-year project from 2025 that will complete deliver of state-of-the-art tracking, calorimetry and trigger capabilities for CMS. These improvements will permit an order of magnitude increase in the recorded data set, allowing measurement of Higgs couplings and self-couplings, and greatly enhanced sensitivity to physics beyond the Standard Model.

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Researchers

Alexander Tapper (Co-Investigator)Gavin Davies (Principal Investigator)Geoffrey Hall (Co-Investigator)Paul Dauncey (Co-Investigator)Tejinder Virdee (Co-Investigator)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

The High-Luminosity Upgrade of the CMS Detector
Upgrades of the Tracker and Trigger of the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC
Upgrades of the Tracker and Trigger of the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC - additional support
R&D in preparation for an upgrade of CMS for the Super-LHC
New Higgs Bosons in CMS

Original classification

Research Grant

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