A fixed-target programme at the LHC for heavy-ion, hadron, spin and astroparticle physics: AFTER@LHC

TL;DR

The paper discusses the potential of the LHC's fixed-target experiments using its high-energy proton and lead beams to study various particle collisions with high precision, enabling new insights into heavy-ion and hadron physics.

Contribution

It presents feasibility studies for producing quarkonia, heavy-flavor mesons, and light-flavor hadrons in fixed-target mode at the LHC, highlighting new experimental possibilities.

Findings

Feasibility of fixed-target experiments at LHC demonstrated

Potential to study quarkonia and heavy-flavor production with high precision

Enhanced understanding of particle production in heavy-ion collisions

Abstract

Thanks to its multi-TeV LHC proton and lead beams, the LHC complex allows one to perform the most energetic fixed-target experiments ever and to study with high precision pp, pd and pA collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 115 GeV and Pbp and PbA collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 72 GeV. We present a selection of feasibility studies for the production of quarkonia, open heavy-flavor mesons as well as light-flavor hadrons in pA and PbA collisions using the LHCb and ALICE detectors in a fixed-target mode.