Thursday, November 30, 2006, 16:00
WHGA Auditorium
J. Schukraft, CERN
Abstract:
In 2007, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is scheduled to start
operation with proton collisions at 0.9 TeV and later, in 2008, with
protons at 14 TeV and heavy ion beams at 5.5 TeV/nucleon. At some 30
times the energy of the RHIC accelerator in the US, the LHC heavy ion
program will open a new chapter in the study of nuclear matter under
extreme conditions. After a brief reminder of the motivation and goals
of heavy ion physics, the talk will give an overview of the heavy ion
program at the LHC, in particular pointing out topics which are
complementary to the current RHIC program, and descibe in some detail
the aims and status of the dedicated heavy ion experiment ALICE.
ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is large state-of-the art
detector, dedicated and optimized to study heavy ion reactions at LHC.
It measures 16 x 26 meters, weights about 10,000 tons and utilizes a
number of novel detector technologies (TOF, RICH, high granularity
silicon detectors and TPC) specifically developped for the highest
multiplicities anticipated at LHC (several ten-thousand particles per
event in the acceptance). The ALICE Collaboration consists of about 1000
members from over 80 Institutes in some 30 countries.