Measurement of the Inelastic Proton-Proton Cross-Section at sqrt{s}=7 TeV with the ATLAS Detector

TL;DR

This paper reports the first measurement of the inelastic proton-proton cross-section at 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector, employing forward scintillation counters and analyzing rapidity gaps to identify inelastic events.

Contribution

It provides a novel measurement of the inelastic cross-section at 7 TeV with a new method based on rapidity gap analysis and forward detector hits.

Findings

Inelastic cross-section measured as 60.3 ± 2.1 mb

Analysis based on rapidity gaps and forward detector hits

Results relevant for understanding proton-proton interactions at high energies

Abstract

A first measurement of the inelastic cross-section is presented for proton-proton collisions at a center of mass energy sqrt{s}=7 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. In a dataset corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 mub-1, events are selected by requiring hits on scintillation counters mounted in the forward region of the detector. An inelastic cross-section of $60.3 +/- 2.1 mb is measured for xi > 5x10^-6, where xi=M_X^2/s is calculated from the invariant mass, M_X, of hadrons selected using the largest rapidity gap in the event. For diffractive events this corresponds to requiring at least one of the dissociation masses to be larger than 15.7 GeV.