The research at the LHC is central to the quest for the fundamental physics laws of nature. LIP is member of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) since its creation in 1992. LIP had a leading role in the design and construction of important components of the CMS detector, namely the data acquisition system of the ECAL sub-detector, used for the measurement of electrons and photons, and the CMS trigger system that performs the online selection of the interesting collisions. After the LHC start-up in 2010 LIP made major contributions to the CMS physics program, in particular: the discovery of a Higgs boson; the measurement of the top quark properties; the first observation of rare B meson decays; the measurement of the psi and upsilon polarizations; and the searches for a charged Higgs and a for a supersymmetric partner of the top quark. A LIP group member has served as Deputy Spokesperson of the Collaboration in 2012-13.

After a two-year shutdown the LHC resumed operation in 2015 with the energy increased to 13 TeV. In preparation for the new beam conditions, the LIP group contributed to the upgrade of the experiment by building and installing a large set of high-speed optical links (oSLB-oRM) that interface the ECAL electronics to the trigger system.The LIP group led the development of the new CTPPS forward proton spectrometer, which took physics data integrated in CMS in 2016-17-18. CTPPS has proven for the first time the feasibility of operating a near-beam proton spectrometer at high luminosity on a regular basis. Since 2018 the project has been organized as a fully integrated sub detector of CMS, named PPS, with one LIP member serving as deputy Project Manager. The group is actively involved and contributing to the physics analysis of the new data in the areas of top physics, Higgs physics, B physics, Supersymmetry, and PPS physics.

The group is participating in the CMS Phase 2 Upgrade for the High-Luminosity LHC. R&D in collaboration with Portuguese industry is being pursued in view of the development of microelectronics blocks for the front end readout systems of the MIPTiming Detector (MTD), the Electromagnetic Calorimeter (ECAL), and the High Granularity Calorimeter (HGCAL). The LIP group is taking a leading responsibility in the development of the readout system of the MTD barrel. The development, prototyping and integration with detector modules is being performed in the TagusLIP laboratory.

Group Leader:  

João Varela

Joao.Varela@cern.ch