Signed in Islamabad in May was an addendum to the Memorandum of Understanding between CERN and Pakistan, covering increased Pakistani involvement in the CMS experiment for CERN’s LHC collider.
Pakistan is supplying six giant 25 ton support feet for the main “barrel” magnet of the CMS detector, as well as material for the magnet itself. Under the new agreement the National Centre for Physics at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, will also supply 432 resistive plate chambers (RPCs) for the CMS forward muon system as part of a collaboration that also involves China, Italy, Korea and the US. In addition the front-end electronics boards for RPC read-out will be manufactured in Pakistan.
A major CERN delegation was recently in Pakistan for the signing of the new agreement.
