Design and optimization of the muon system for the compact muon solenoid experiment at the LHC

The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the LHC is based on a long superconducting solenoid generating a uniform magnetic field of 4 T. The choice of a strong magnetic field leads to a compact design for muon spectrometer without compromising the muon resolution up to rapidity of 2.4. The muon system is designed to be robust at the highest luminosity of the LHC. It must fulfill three basic tasks: muon identification, trigger, and measurement of muon momenta from a few GeV up to a few TeV. Optimization of the forward muon detector, a responsibility of the American CMS member institutions, will be described in detail.