Trigger and Reconstruction Studies with Beam Halo and Cosmic Muons

The efficient triggering and reconstruction of cosmic and beam halo muons is important to the commissioning phase of the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment (CMS), prior to operating with physics collisions. Since the standard trigger simulation and reconstruction algorithms have been designed to efficiently identify muons originating from the interaction point and in temporal coincidence with the beam crossing, a different optimization must be carried out in order to effectively reconstruct other sources of muons. Results of such optimization for the muon system, on simulated cosmic and beam halo muon events, are presented.