Proton-Nucleus Collisions at the LHC: Scientific Opportunities and Requirements

TL;DR

Proton-nucleus collisions at the LHC are essential for understanding nuclear matter and partonic structure, offering unique scientific opportunities and requiring specific operational plans for advancing heavy-ion physics.

Contribution

This paper highlights the scientific importance of p+A collisions at the LHC and discusses the necessary operational requirements and opportunities for future research.

Findings

p+A collisions serve as a crucial reference for nucleus-nucleus data

They provide insights into the partonic structure at small-x

Operational plans for p+A mode are under active discussion

Abstract

Proton-nucleus (p+A) collisions have long been recognized as a crucial component of the physics programme with nuclear beams at high energies, in particular for their reference role to interpret and understand nucleus-nucleus data as well as for their potential to elucidate the partonic structure of matter at low parton fractional momenta (small-x). Here, we summarize the main motivations that make a proton-nucleus run a decisive ingredient for a successful heavy-ion programme at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and we present unique scientific opportunities arising from these collisions. We also review the status of ongoing discussions about operation plans for the p+A mode at the LHC.