Current status of the LHCf experiment

TL;DR

The paper discusses the current status of the LHCf experiment at CERN, which measures forward neutral particles in proton-proton collisions to improve cosmic ray models.

Contribution

It reports on the installation and readiness of calorimeters at LHC for measuring forward neutral particles relevant to cosmic ray physics.

Findings

Calorimeters installed at 140m from interaction point

Initial data collection planned during early LHC operation

Results will benchmark Monte Carlo models for cosmic rays

Abstract

An important experiment for cosmic ray physics is going to be conducted with the colliding proton beams of the CERN LHC. The equivalent energy of the 14 TeV center of mass energy of the colliding proton beams in the LHC is 1017eV in the laboratory frame. Two small electromagnetic calorimeters have been installed at zero degree collision angle +/-140m from the interaction point IP1. The calorimeters measure the energies and the positions of the axes of showers produced by forward neutral particles created in the proton-proton collisions. The shower calorimeters are therefore able to measure the production cross-section of neutral pions emitted in the very forward region. The experimental results will be obtained during the early operation phase of LHC when the luminosity is below 1030cm-2s-1. The data obtained will be extremely important for benchmarking the various Monte Carlo codes used for interpreting super high energy cosmic ray phenomena.