CASTOR: The ALICE forward detector for identification of Centauros and Strangelets in Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions at the LHC

TL;DR

The paper introduces CASTOR, a forward detector for the ALICE experiment at CERN, designed to identify exotic phenomena like Centauros and Strangelets in high-energy nucleus collisions, supported by simulation results.

Contribution

It presents the design and simulation results of CASTOR, a novel detector aimed at detecting exotic particles in the very forward region of heavy ion collisions.

Findings

Simulated detector response to strangelets and Centauro events.

CASTOR can distinguish deeply penetrating objects from background.

The detector covers the baryon-rich phase space 5.6 < eta < 7.2.

Abstract

The physics motivation for a very forward detector for the ALICE heavy ion experiment at the CERN LHC is discussed. A phenomenological model describing the formation and decay of a Centauro fireball in nucleus-nucleus collisions is presented. The CASTOR detector which is aimed to measure the hadronic and photonic content of an interaction and to identify deeply penetrating objects in the very forward, baryon-rich phase space 5.6 < eta < 7.2 in an event-by-event mode is described. Results of simulations of the expected response of the calorimeter, and in particular to the passage of strangelets, are presented.