LHCf experiment

The LHCf experiment, the smallest of the seven experiments on the LHC
Large Hadron Collider
(LHC)
LHC experiments
ATLAS A Toroidal LHC Apparatus
CMS Compact Muon Solenoid
LHCb LHC-beauty
ALICE A Large Ion Collider Experiment
TOTEM Total Cross Section, Elastic Scattering and Diffraction Dissociation
LHCf LHC-forward
MoEDAL Monopole and Exotics Detector At the LHC
LHC preaccelerators
p and Pb Linear accelerators for protons (Linac 2) and Lead (Linac 3)
(not marked) Proton Synchrotron Booster
PS Proton Synchrotron
SPS Super Proton Synchrotron

The LHCf ("Large Hadron Collider forward") is a special-purpose Large Hadron Collider experiment for astroparticle (cosmic ray) physics, and one of seven detectors in the LHC accelerator at CERN. The other six are: ATLAS, ALICE, CMS, MoEDAL, TOTEM, and LHCb. LHCf is designed to study the particles generated in the "forward" region of collisions, those almost directly in line with the colliding proton beams. It therefore consists of two detectors, 140 m on either side of the interaction point. Because of this large distance, it can co-exist with a more conventional detector surrounding the interaction point, and shares the interaction point IP1 with the much larger general-purpose ATLAS experiment.

Purpose

The LHCf is intended to measure the energy and numbers of neutral pions (
π0
) produced by the collider. This will hopefully help explain the origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. The results will complement other high-energy cosmic ray measurements from the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, and the Telescope Array Project in Utah.

References

Coordinates: 46°14′09″N 6°03′18″E / 46.23583°N 6.05500°E / 46.23583; 6.05500


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