CMS Compact Muon Solenoid LHCf LHC-forward | LHCb LHC-beauty | |
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ATLAS A Toroidal LHC Apparatus ALICE A Large Ion Collider Experiment TOTEM Total Cross Section, Elastic Scattering and Diffraction Dissociation | ||
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.