  We present the capabilities of the CMS experiment to explore the heavy-ion
physics program offered by the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The prime goal
of this research is to test the fundamental theory of the strong interaction
(QCD) in extreme conditions of temperature, density and parton momentum
fraction by colliding nuclei at energies of sqrt(s_NN) = 5.5 TeV. This
presentation will give the overview of the potential of the CMS to carry out a
full set of representative Pb-Pb measurements both in "soft" and "hard"
regimes. Measurements include "bulk" observables -- charged hadron
multiplicity, low pT inclusive hadron identified spectra and elliptic flow --
which provide information on the collective properties of the system; as well
as perturbative processes - such as quarkonia, heavy-quarks, jets, gamma-jet,
and high pT hadrons -- which yield "tomographic" information of the hottest and
densest phases of the reaction.
