ALICE FoCal overview

TL;DR

The ALICE FoCal is a new forward calorimeter designed for the LHC to measure gluon densities at very small x, enhancing understanding of non-linear QCD phenomena in high-energy collisions.

Contribution

This paper introduces the design, physics goals, and performance of the upcoming ALICE FoCal detector, a novel high-granularity calorimeter for forward physics at the LHC.

Findings

FoCal prototype performance evaluated

Expected to measure gluon densities down to x~10^{-6}

Enhances ALICE's capability for forward physics studies

Abstract

The Forward Calorimeter (FoCal) is a new sub-detector in ALICE to be installed during the LHC Long Shutdown 3 for LHC Run 4. It consists of a highly-granular Si+W electromagnetic calorimeter combined with a conventional metal-scintillator hadronic calorimeter, covering a pseudorapidity interval of $3.2<\eta<5.8$. The FoCal is optimised to measure various physics quantities in the forward region, allowing exploration of the gluon density in hadronic matter down to $x\sim10^{-6}$, thus providing insights into non-linear QCD evolution at the LHC. These proceedings introduce the FoCal physics program and its corresponding performance. Additionally, the performance of the FoCal prototype will be presented.