Heavy Ion Physics with the CMS experiment at the LHC

The LHC will collide protons at roots = 14.0 TeV and lead beams at roots(NN) = 5.5 TeV as well as other AA and pA combinations. The physics program of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) includes the study of heavy ion collisions. The collision energy, much higher than is available at RHIC, will allow the study the dense partonic system with very hard probes: heavy quarks and quarkonia with emphasis on the b and gamma, W+/- and Z(0) bosons, high (PT) jets, photons. The production of these particles is likely to be modified, relative to pp collisions, by the presence of the hot hadronic medium. The CMS detector consists of a 13 m long, 6 m diameter superconducting solenoid which provides a uniform 4T magnetic field. The silicon tracker and electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters are located inside the magnet while the muon detector is outside. The high granularity, high resolution calorimeters will provide hermetic coverage for \eta\ less than or equal to 5.5, making CMS an ideal detector to study high PT nuclear phenomena.