Monday 8 September 2008

CMS bends Cosmic Muons...

The CMS Superconducting Magnet is back on the scene. The cooling down to the nominal temperature of 4.5 K was achieved at the beginning of August. On August 25th, at 8pm, the final commissioning of the Magnet started, working at night to leave the day free for the forward region detector assembly.

Last Friday night, September 5th, the current was set to 14500 Amps (3 Tesla central field) for almost two hours to allow an extensive run of all sub-detectors. Cosmic muons bends on presence of magnetic field. The data of this "3 Tesla" magnet commissioning test was distributed to all CMS computing centers and bended tracks were further reconstructed.

With all the parameters being within their reference values, the first phase of the Magnet commissioning underground can be considered achieved. The test plans were fully achieved within the time allowed. The next step will be the test at full current... and to bend the products from proton-proton collissions!