The LHCf detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

2008

LHCf is an experiment dedicated to the measurement of neutral particles emitted in the very forward region of LHC collisions. The physics goal is to provide data for calibrating the hadron interaction models that are used in the study of Extremely High-Energy Cosmic-Rays. This is possible since the laboratory equivalent collision energy of LHC is 10(17) eV. Two LHCf detectors, consisting of imaging calorimeters made of tungsten plates, plastic scintillator and position sensitive sensors, are installed at zero degree collision angle +/- 140m from an interaction point (IP). Although the lateral dimensions of these calorimeters are very compact, ranging from 20 mm x 20 mm to 40 mm x 40 mm, the…