Physics – High Energy Physics – High Energy Physics - Experiment
Scientific paper
2011-09-20
Physics
High Energy Physics
High Energy Physics - Experiment
Talk given at Royal Society meeting on "Physics at the high energy frontier - the Large Hadron Collider project", London, 16 -
Scientific paper
After close to 20 years of preparation, the dedicated heavy ion experiment ALICE took first data at the CERN LHC accelerator with proton collisions at the end of 2009 and with lead nuclei at the end of 2010. After a short introduction into the physics of ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions, this article recalls the main design choices made for the detector and summarizes the initial operation and performance of ALICE. Physics results from this first year of operation concentrate on characterizing the global properties of typical, average collisions, both in pp and nucleus-nucleus reactions, in the new energy regime of LHC. The pp results differ, to a varying degree, from most QCD inspired phenomenological models and provide the input needed to fine-tune their parameters. First results from Pb-Pb are broadly consistent with expectations based on lower energy data, indicating that high density matter created at LHC, while much hotter and larger, still behaves like a very strongly interacting, almost perfect liquid.
for the ALICE Collaboration
Schukraft Jurgen
No associations
LandOfFree
Heavy Ion physics with the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Heavy Ion physics with the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Heavy Ion physics with the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-147192