Heavy Ion Physics with the Compact Muon Solenoid at the Large Hadron Collider

The LHC will collide protons at center of mass energy of 14 TeV and lead beams at center of mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.5 TeV as well as other A+A and p+A combinations. The physics program of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) includes the study of heavy ion collisions. The collision energy, much higher than at RHIC, will allow the study of the dense partonic system with very hard probes: heavy quarks and Quarkonia with an emphasis on b and Upsilon, W and Z bosons, high transverse momentum jets and photons. The production of these particles is likely to be modified, relative to P+p collisions, by the presence of the hot medium.