At the Leading Edge: The ATLAS and CMS LHC Experiments

Too often descriptions of detectors focus on the "what" and not the "why". This volume aims to elucidate how the requirements of the physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) define the detector environment. In turn, the detector choices are made to adopt to that environment. The goal of LHC physics is to explore the mechanism for electroweak symmetry breaking. Because of the minuscule cross-sections which need to be explored, 0.1 fb, the LHC needs to provide 100 fb-1/yr, or an instantaneous luminosity of 1034 / (cm2 sec). With a bunch crossing interval of 25 nsec, well matched to detector speeds, there will be 25 events occupying each bunch crossing.