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FORINFRA-Nasj.sats. forskn.infrastrukt

Enabling LHC Physics at Extreme Collision Rates

Alternative title: Muliggjøring av LHC Fysikk ved ekstreme kollisjonsrater

Awarded: NOK 85.0 mill.

With the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN we entered a new era of research in High Energy physics. During its first years of operation the LHC has been proven very successful, culminating with the discovery of the Higgs boson. To fully take advantage of the potential of the LHC machine to make new discoveries, a series of upgrades is planned. First, the energy will be increased from 8 to 13 and eventually 14 TeV. Second, the beam intensity will be upgraded during two interruptions to regular LHC operation: first in 2019-2020, then again during 2024-2025. Since the intensity upgrades lead to 2-10 times higher collision rates delivered to the experiments (as well as higher radiation doses), the LHC experiments with Norwegian participation, ATLAS and ALICE, need to enhance their detectors, trigger systems, and computing systems accordingly. In this proposal we have addressed in a consistent way the infrastructure requirements for exploitation of the LHC luminosity upgrades. We apply for funding for step one of the improvements to the ATLAS and ALICE experiments and the re-furbishing and expansion of the required e-infrastructure, thus securing Norwegian membership in these experiments and our position at several of the internationally recognized frontiers of high energy physics research. It is also a unique opportunity for Norwegian researchers to harvest the outcome of many years of detector R&D, which may result in new detector technologies. When ready, the HL-LHC will give unprecedented statistics at collision energies never before probed, which promises important new physics insight and possibly new discoveries.

With the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN we entered a new era of research in High Energy physics. During its first years of operation the LHC has been proven very successful, culminating with the discovery of the Higgs boson. To fully take advantage of the potential of the LHC machine to make new discoveries, a series of upgrades is planned. First, the energy will be increased from 8 to 13 and eventually 14 TeV. Second, the beam intensity will be upgraded during two interruptions to regular LHC operation: first in 2019-2020, then again during 2024-2025. Since the intensity upgrades lead to 2-10 times higher collision rates delivered to the experiments (as well as higher radiation doses), the LHC experiments with Norwegian participation, ATLAS and ALICE, need to enhance their detectors, trigger systems, and computing systems accordingly. In this proposal we have addressed in a consistent way the infrastructure requirements for exploitation of the LHC luminosity upgrades. We apply for funding for step one of the improvements to the ATLAS and ALICE experiments and the re-furbishing and expansion of the required e-infrastructure, thus securing Norwegian membership in these experiments and our position at several of the internationally recognized frontiers of high energy physics research. It is also a unique opportunity for Norwegian researchers to harvest the outcome of many years of detector R&D, which may result in new detector technologies. When ready, the HL-LHC will give unprecedented statistics at collision energies never before probed, which promises important new physics insight and possibly new discoveries.

Funding scheme:

FORINFRA-Nasj.sats. forskn.infrastrukt

Funding Sources