Forward Physics with the CMS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider

TL;DR

This paper reviews the CMS experiment's forward physics program at the LHC, detailing detector instrumentation, physics topics studied, and presenting initial measurements of forward jets and energy flow at various collision energies.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the CMS forward detectors and summarizes early results in forward jet observation and energy flow measurements at the LHC.

Findings

First observation of forward jets

Early measurements of forward energy flow

Prospects for diffractive and forward physics

Abstract

The forward physics program of the CMS experiment at the LHC spans a broad range of diverse physics topics including studies of low-x QCD and diffractive scattering, multi-parton interactions and underlying event structure, gamma-mediated processes and luminosity determination, Monte Carlo tuning and even MSSM Higgs discovery in central exclusive production. In this article, the forward detector instrumentation around the CMS interaction point is described and the prospects for diffractive and forward physics using the CMS forward detectors are summarized. In addition, first observation of forward jets as well as early measurements of the forward energy flow in the pseudorapidity range 3.15<|\eta|<4.9 at \sqrt{s}=0.9 TeV, 2.36 TeV and 7 TeV are presented.