An experiment for electron-hadron scattering at the LHC


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Andre K. D. J., Bella L. A., Armesto N., Bogacz S. A., Britzger D., Bruening O. S., ...More

EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL C, vol.82, no.1, 2022 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 82 Issue: 1
  • Publication Date: 2022
  • Doi Number: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-021-09967-z
  • Journal Name: EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL C
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, Aerospace Database, Communication Abstracts, INSPEC, zbMATH, Directory of Open Access Journals
  • Bursa Uludag University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Novel considerations are presented on the physics, apparatus and accelerator designs for a future, luminous, energy frontier electron-hadron (eh) scattering experiment at the LHC in the thirties for which key physics topics and their relation to the hadron-hadron HL-LHC physics programme are discussed. Demands are derived set by these physics topics on the design of the LHeC detector, a corresponding update of which is described. Optimisations on the accelerator design, especially the interaction region (IR), are presented. Initial accelerator considerations indicate that a common IR is possible to be built which alternately could serve eh and hh collisions while other experiments would stay on hh in either condition. A forward-backward symmetrised option of the LHeC detector is sketched which would permit extending the LHeC physics programme to also include aspects of hadron-hadron physics. The vision of a joint eh and hh physics experiment is shown to open new prospects for solving fundamental problems of high energy heavy-ion physics including the partonic structure of nuclei and the emergence of hydrodynamics in quantum field theory while the genuine TeV scale DIS physics is of unprecedented rank.