2nd CERN-Fermilab Hadron Collider Physics Summer School

For the past few years, experiments at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider have once again been exploring uncharted territory at the current energy frontier of particle physics. With CERN's LHC operations to start in 2007, a new era in the exploration of the fundamental laws of nature will begin. In anticipation of this era of discovery, Fermilab and CERN are jointly organizing a series of "Hadron Collider Physics Summer Schools", whose main goal is to offer a complete picture of both the theoretical and experimental aspects of hadron collider physics. Preparing young researchers to tackle the current and anticipated challenges at hadron colliders, and spreading the global knowledge required for a timely and competent exploitation of the LHC physics potential, are concerns equally shared by CERN, the LHC host laboratory, and by Fermilab, the home of the Tevatron and host of CMS's LHC Physics Center in the U.S. The CERN-Fermilab Hadron Collider Physics Summer School is targeted particularly at young postdocs in experimental High Energy Physics, as well as senior PhD students in HEP phenomenology. Other schools, such as the CERN European School of High Energy Physics, may provide more appropriate training for students in experimental HEP who are still working towards their PhDs. The emphasis of the first school was on the physics potential of the first years of data taking at the LHC, and on the experimental and theoretical tools needed to exploit that potential. A series of lectures and informal discussions included an introduction to the theoretical and phenomenological framework of hadron collisions, and current theoretical models of frontier physics, as well as an overview of the main detector components, the initial calibration procedures and physics samples, and early LHC results. Explicit examples of physics analyses drawn from the current Tevatron experience helped inform these exchanges.