cosmic

CERN Accelerating science

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Motivation

A full acceptance detector, including the far-forward regions has never been done at the previous colliders. Particle production in generic inelastic collisions at the LHC spans ~20 units of pseudorapidity . The charged particle and energy densities predicted by Pythia are plotted as a function of pseudorapidity: See pseudorapidity distribution of charged particles and of the energy-flow.
To fully exploit the physics potential of the LHC, the experimental program should thus include, from the beginning, a detector that is sensitive to the entire kinematic range. The goal of a full acceptance experiment is to maximize the ability to search for new physics in unexplored regions of phase space. In addition to such searches, a full acceptance detector would have a substantial agenda covering a wide variety of more conventional physics topics. Much of the inspiration for this program comes from J.D.Bjorken's proposal for a very forward detector at the SSC.
The FELIX detector and physics agenda is complementary to the ones of the LHC experiments.
 May 1996