NEWS
Two Students from UoB Participate in Organizing a Virtual Visit for the University Students on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) at “CERN”
Sakhir – University of Bahrain (Khadijah Abdusalem)
August 21, 2022
Two students from the University of Bahrain participated in organizing a virtual visit on the “The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Experiment” through a live broadcast for UoB students and faculty, in collaboration with CMS Communication Office. During the visit, the university students were briefed on the details of the detector, and the scientific and engineering challenges of such experiments.
During the visit, master’s student in mechanical engineering, Ali Marzouk Jaafar, gave a brief explaining the scientific basis of the detector, and the method used to detect elementary particles. He accompanied the students on a tour inside the detector’s control room, where a group of researchers monitor the performance of the different parts of the detector on a regular basis. The students also took a tour in the cavity in which the experiment is done, 100 meters below the surface of the earth. The students were introduced to the computing systems used to process and store data from the collision of protons. Concluding the visit, Jaafar conducted some practical experiments that show the effect of the magnetic field generated from the experiment on the surrounding environment.
Jaafar pointed out that the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment is one of the most important physical experiments based on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), located on the border between Switzerland and France. The detector plays a role similar to that of a three-dimensional camera of the particles resulting from the collision of protons, as the Large Hadron Collider accelerates protons to a speed close to that of light, and then collides it at the detector, aiming to explore and study the elementary particles that make up matter.
The virtual visit was moderated by PhD student in computing and information sciences, College of Information Technology, University of Bahrain, Abdullah Ibrahim Sabah, who pointed out that the University of Bahrain has been a participating member in CMS experience since 2019, and that several joint projects began between the university and CMS to exchange experiences and knowledge.
Several master’s and PhD students were sent abroad to complete their scientific theses and participate in the current research activities in the experiment. This collaboration resulted in many valuable projects in the fields of computing, engineering and science, including a project to accelerate algorithms used in detector software by parallel programming techniques, a project to design and manufacture a crane for maintenance of the detector. This crane has been completed in Bahrain and will soon be shipped. In addition, there is a project to exchange experiences in the field of design and management of supercomputing laboratories.