Colloquium: Discovering new physics with HL-CMS: seeing LHC collisions through new eyes

by Bryan Cardwell (University of Virginia (US))

Wednesday 9 Sept 2026, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Vienna

Besprechungsraum 2 (Marietta Blau Institute for Particle Physics, Dominikanerbastei 16 [PSK], 1010 Vienna)

The ongoing HL-LHC upgrade presents an incredible opportunity for the LHC collaborations to study the electroweak scale with unprecedented precision and potentially observe never-before-seen processes. Taking advantage of these opportunities requires overcoming substantial experimental challenges, in particular the need to survive the enormous radiation dose and disentangle particles from up to 200 simultaneous collisions. To this end, the CMS collaboration is rebuilding its detector from the ground up. In addition to dramatic upgrades to its existing subdetectors, CMS is adding fundamentally new capabilities such as precision timing, high-granularity calorimetry, particle tracking at 40MHz, and the ability to analyze sequential collisions at rates up to 40MHz. In this colloquium, I will provide an overview of the novel experimental capabilities being deployed and argue that leveraging them to search for unconventional signatures of new physics presents a unique opportunity for discovery at the HL-LHC.