Measurements of electroweak production in the forward region at the LHC provide unique and complementary information to those performed in the central region. Studies have been performed not just by LHCb, a dedicated forward detector, but also by ATLAS and CMS, which are primarily situated in the central region but can exploit forward calorimetry coverage to contribute to the understanding of SM processes in the forward region.
The LHCb detector at the LHC offers unique coverage of forward rapidities for studies of Central Exclusive Production (CEP) and soft QCD. CEP measurements allow the investigation of the nature of pomerons, and provide constraints on low-x gluon phenomenology, probing potential saturation effects. Moreover LHCb can test phenomenological models of soft QCD processes, by measuring the production of forward hadrons in pp collisions. In these proceedings the latest results from the LHCb experiment will be presented.
Results for $W$ and $Z$ boson production from $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7$ TeV in the LHCb experiment are presented. Due to LHCb's unique forward acceptance in pseudorapidity of $2.0 \leq η\leq 4.5$ these results are a test of the Standard Model in the forward region, and can be used to better constrain parton density functions in the low $x$ kinematic regime.
The LHC forward experiment (LHCf) is specifically designed for measurements of the very forward ($η$$>$8.4) production cross sections of neutral pions and neutrons at Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. LHCf started data taking in December 2009, when the LHC started to provide stable collisions of protons at $\sqrt{s}$=900\,GeV. Since March 2010, LHC increased the collision energy up to $\sqrt{s}$=7\,TeV. By the time of the symposium, LHCf collected 113k events of high energy showers (corresponding to $\sim$7M inelastic collisions) at $\sqrt{s}$=900\,GeV and $\sim$100M showers ($\sim$14 nb$^{…
LHCb presents studies of particle production in minimum bias events in pp collisions at \sqrt{s} = 7 TeV. These studies include measurements of strangeness production, particle ratios, baryon-antibaryon ratios and charged particle production. The forward coverage and low pT acceptance of the experiment makes these measurements very complementary to those performed by the central detectors at the LHC. Further benefits arise from the powerful particle identification capabilities provided by the LHCb RICH system. The measurements are compared with theoretical predictions.
In this talk we present a selection of forward physics results recently obtained with the run-1 and run-2 LHC data by the CMS, LHCf and TOTEM experiments. The status of the very forward LHC proton spectrometer, CT-PPS, is discussed: emphasis is given to the physics potential of CT-PPS and to the analyses that are currently ongoing with the data collected in 2016. Very recent forward measurements obtained with the LHCf and the CMS-CASTOR calorimeter are then addressed. In particular, CMS measured the inclusive energy spectrum in the very forward direction for proton-proton collisions at a cente…
We present a method to measure dominant Standard Model backgrounds using data containing high rapidity objects in pp collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. The method is developed for analyses of early LHC data when robustness against imperfections of background modeling and detector simulation can be a key to the discovery of new physics at LHC.
The capabilities of the ATLAS, CMS and LHCb detectors to reconstruct jets at forward rapidities (|η|> 3) in p-p collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider are reviewed. The QCD and Higgs physics motivations for such measurements are summarised. Details are given on studies that provide information on the parton structure and evolution at small values of fractional momenta in the proton.
Studies of electroweak boson production at LHCb are detailed and discussed. Proposed signal selection schemes and background suppression strategies are described and the projected performance is estimated using Monte Carlo data. Due to the unique pseudorapidity coverage and triggering capabilities of LHCb, these studies will probe an unexplored region of x, Q^2 space.
Due to its unique pseudorapidity coverage and the ability to perform measurements at low transverse momenta, the LHCb detector allows a unique insight into particle production in the forward region at the LHC. Using large samples of proton-proton collision data accumulated at sqrt(s)=7 TeV, the LHCb collaboration has performed a series of dedicated analyses providing important input to the knowledge of the parton density functions, underlying event activity, low Bjorken-x QCD dynamics and exclusive processes. Some of these are briefly summarised here.
A measurement is presented for the energy flow of minimum bias events in the forward region (3.15 <|η|< 4.9, where ηis the pseudorapidity) of the CMS detector at the LHC for center-of-mass energies sqrt(s) = 0.9 TeV, 2.36 TeV and 7 TeV. The measurement is compared to Monte Carlo simulations, which use a model of multiparton interactions for the underlying event. In addition, production of forward jets was studied for the very first pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 0.9 TeV at LHC.
The LHCb experiment at the LHC is fully instrumented over a unique pseudorapidity range in the forward region. Although it has been designed for b-physics, LHCb is able to provide valuable informations on particle production in this region of phase space. Therefore QCD studies have been performed with the LHCb detector on pp collisions at \sqrt(s)=900 GeV and \sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The measurement of charged particles multiplicity at \sqrt{s}=7 TeV}, \bar(Lambda)/Lambda, \bar(Lambda)/K_s^0 production ratios at \sqrt(s)=900 GeV and \sqrt(s)=7 TeV, as well as light hadrons (p,K,pi) production ratios at…
Forward physics with CMS at the LHC covers a wide range of physics subjects, including very low-x QCD, underlying event and multiple interactions characteristics, gamma-mediated processes, shower development at the energy scale of primary cosmic ray interactions with the atmosphere, diffraction in the presence of a hard scale and even MSSM Higgs discovery in central exclusive production. We describe the forward detector instrumentation around the CMS interaction point and present selected feasibility studies to illustrate their physics potential.
The CMS/TOTEM and ATLAS collaborations carry out a program of forward physics with several near-beam detectors extending their coverage to high pseudorapidities. This instrumentation includes calorimeters (CASTOR and ZDC), tracking devices (TOTEM T1 and T2), proton taggers (Roman Pots and FP420), and instrumentation dedicated to luminosity monitoring and normalisation. A rich physics program is accessible, including soft QCD interactions, Diffraction, photon-induced physics and luminosity measurements.
Physical possibility for bending the LHC protons (or ions) a huge angle of 1-20 degrees in the energy range of 0.45 to 7 TeV by means of a bent channeling crystal of Silicon or Germanium is demonstrated. Such an application can be useful for calibration of CMS (or ATLAS) calorimeters in situ by the LHC beam of precisely known energy. We show by simulations that such an application would be feasible at the LHC, and report the experience of IHEP Protvino in bending 70 GeV protons by 9 degrees (150 mrad) during 10 years in 1994-2004 experiments.
This talk summarises the ongoing proposals to upgrade the ATLAS and CMS detectors by the installation of forward silicon detector systems close to the beam line at distances of approximately 220 m and 420 m from the respective Interaction Points. The physics motivation is outlined, with emphasis on detection of Higgs and Supersymmetric states, and some of the aspects of the apparatus and its performance are briefly described.
We present the results on the energy flow measured with minimum-bias data collected by the LHCb experiment in pp collisions at sqrt{s}=7 TeV for inclusive minimum-bias interactions, hard scattering processes and events with enhanced or suppressed diffractive contribution. The measurements are performed in the pseudorapidity range 1.9<η<4.9, which corresponds to the main detector acceptance of the LHCb spectrometer. The data are compared to predictions given by the PYTHIA-based and cosmic-ray Monte Carlo event generators, which model the underlying event activity in different ways.
Forward top production is observed, in the $μ+b$ final state, with the 3 fb$^{-1}$ Run I dataset collected by the LHCb detector. The combined cross-section for $t\bar{t}$ and single top production at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV and $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV is measured, for muons from the W boson with $p_{\rm T} > 25$ GeV in the pseudo-rapidity range 2.0$< η<$4.5 and with a b-tagged jet with 50$ < p_{\rm T} < 100$ GeV in the pseudorapidity range 2.2$< η<$4.2. The production cross-sections are found to be in agreement with NLO predictions.
Detailed results on top quark production at LHCb are reported from the first observation of top production in a forward region detector to the first measurement of top pair production at LHCb with 13 TeV data.
We present here a study on the determination of the effective weak mixing angle, $\sin^{2}θ^{lept}_{eff}$ from the measurement of the Forward-Backward Asymmetry with a high a statistical precision, 10$^{-4}$. To reach such a precision it is necessary to identify the electrons in the forward regions of the ATLAS detector. It is demonstrated that one can reach an electron-jet rejection of more than 100 with an efficiency on electron reconstruction better than 50%, by using a multivariate analysis.
Inclusive c and b-jet tagging algorithms have been developed to utilize the excellent secondary vertex reconstruction and resolution capabilities of the LHCb detector. The validation and performance of these tagging algorithms are reported using the full run 1 LHCb dataset at 7 and 8 TeV. Jet-tagging has been applied to muon+jet final states to measure both the W+c,b-jet charge asymmetries and the ratios of W+c,b-jet to W+jet and W+jet to Z+jet production. The forward top production cross-section is also measured using the muon+b-jet final. All results are found to be consistent with standard …
We review the detection capabilities in the forward direction of the various LHC experiments together with the associated physics programme. A selection of measurements accessible with near-beam instrumentation in various sectors (and extensions) of the Standard Model (SM) is outlined, including QCD (diffractive and elastic scattering, low-x parton dynamics, hadronic Monte Carlos for cosmic-rays), electroweak processes in gamma-gamma interactions, and Higgs physics (vector-boson-fusion and central exclusive production).
The LHCf experiment is dedicated to the measurement of very forward particle production in the high energy hadron-hadron collisions at LHC, with the aim of improving the cosmic-ray air shower developments models. The detector has taken data in p-p collisions at $\sqrt s$ = 900 GeV, 2.76 TeV and 7 TeV, and in p/Pb collisions at $\sqrt s$ = 5 TeV. The results of forward production spectra of photons, neutral pions and neutrons, compared with the models most widely used in the High Energy Cosmic Ray physics, are presented in this paper.
The inclusive production rate of neutral pions in the rapidity range greater than $y=8.9$ has been measured by the Large Hadron Collider forward (LHCf) experiment during LHC $\sqrt{s}=7$\,TeV proton-proton collision operation in early 2010. This paper presents the transverse momentum spectra of the neutral pions. The spectra from two independent LHCf detectors are consistent with each other and serve as a cross check of the data. The transverse momentum spectra are also compared with the predictions of several hadronic interaction models that are often used for high energy particle physics and…
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…
In this paper, we report the production cross-section of forward photons in the pseudorapidity regions of $η\,>\,10.94$ and $8.99\,>\,η\,>\,8.81$, measured by the LHCf experiment with proton--proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV. The results from the analysis of 0.191 $\mathrm{nb^{-1}}$ of data obtained in June 2015 are compared to the predictions of several hadronic interaction models that are used in air-shower simulations for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. Although none of the models agree perfectly with the data, EPOS-LHC shows the best agreement with the experimental data among the mo…
Small-angle detectors at the LHC give access to a broad physics programme within and beyond the Standard Model (SM). We review the capabilities of ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, LHCf and TOTEM for forward physics studies in various sectors: soft and hard diffractive processes, exclusive Higgs production, low-x QCD, ultra-high-energy cosmic-rays, and electro-weak measurements.
Quarkonia and open heavy flavour production are crucial to study the properties of the nuclear matter at high energy densities and of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP). In proton-proton collisions at LHC, the measurement of their production cross-section will allow to test perturbative QCD calculations in a new energy regime and provide the baseline for measurements in heavy ion collisions. In the latter, as they experience the full evolution of the collision, heavy quarks are ideal probes to study the property of the system. During the 2010 campaign of the LHC, ALICE took proton-proton data at $\s…
I discuss the development of high precision timing detectors for high momentum protons at the LHC, and their application in studying exclusive Higgs boson production.
The dijet signature at the LHC is studied in new physics models for the top forward-backward asymmetry at the Tevatron. In the t-mediator models, flavor-changing interactions contribute to the dijet production cross section as well as the asymmetry at least at the one-loop level. It is found that the LHC dijet measurements at 36pb^(-1) have constrained the Z' coupling larger than 2.5-3. The sensitivity is expected to be improved significantly as the integrated luminosity increases in the LHC.
Studies in the forward region of charged particle multiplicity and density, as well as energy flow, are presented. These measurements are performed using data from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, collected with the LHCb detector. The results are compared to predictions from a variety of Monte Carlo event generators and are used to test underlying event and hadronization models as well as the performance of event generator tunes in the forward region.
In ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions, a deconfined state of strongly interacting matter is thought to be produced, commonly known as the quark--gluon plasma (QGP). Quarkonia, bound states of a heavy quark and antiquark, are an important probe to study the properties of the QGP. At the LHC, bottomonium (b$\rm\overline{b}$) is of particular interest to study the QGP complementarily to the lighter charmonium (c$\rm\overline{c}$) system. In addition to the measurements in nucleus-nucleus collisions, reference measurements in proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions have been also car…
Precision electroweak tests are a powerful probe of physics beyond the Standard Model, but the sensitivity is limited by the precision with which the $W$ boson mass ($M_W$) has been measured. The Parton Distribution Function (PDF) uncertainties are a potential limitation for measurements of $M_W$ with LHC data. It has recently been pointed out that, thanks to LHCb's unique forward rapidity acceptance, a new measurement of $M_W$ by LHCb can improve this situation. Here we report on a detailed study on the mechanism driving the PDF uncertainty in the LHCb measurement of $M_W$, and propose an app…
We suggest that top physics can be studied at the LHCb experiment, and that top production could be observed. Since LHCb covers a large pseudorapidity region in the forward direction, it has unique abilities to probe new physics in the top sector. Furthermore, we demonstrate that LHCb may be able to measure a t\bar t production rate asymmetry, and thus indirectly probe an anomalous forward backward t\bar t asymmetry in the forward region; a possibility suggested by the enhanced forward-backward asymmetry reported by the CDF experiment.
In the spirit of Mueller-Navelet dijet production, we propose and study the inclusive production of a forward $J/ψ$ and a very backward jet at the LHC as an observable to reveal high-energy resummation effects à la BFKL. We obtain several predictions, which are based on the various mechanisms discussed in the literature to describe the production of the $J/ψ$, namely, NRQCD singlet and octet contributions, and the color evaporation model.
Photon bremsstrahlung is proposed to be used to identify elastic proton-proton interactions at the LHC. In addition to a measurement of the elastic pp cross section (assuming that the elastic slope is known), the bremsstrahlung photons will allow the evaluation of the total pp cross section, luminosity and to align the Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs).
Probes for the small-x parton densities and predicted effects of gluon saturation are discussed. At very low x and intermediate Q, only results on hadronic observables at the LHC are available, which do not provide unambiguous information. It is shown that the measurement of direct photons at forward rapidity at the LHC is particularly promising to provide a unique signal. We further discuss the possibilities to perform such measurements with a detector upgrade in the ALICE experiment and present the R&D activities ongoing.
A rapidity gap program with great potential can be realized at the Large Hadron Collider, LHC, by adding a few simple forward shower counters (FSCs) along the beam line on both sides of the main central detectors, such as CMS. Measurements of single diffractive cross sections down to the lowest masses can be made with an efficient level-1 trigger. Exceptionally, the detectors also make feasible the study of Central Diffractive Excitation, and in particular the reaction g + g to g + g, in the color singlet channel, effectively using the LHC as a gluon-gluon collider.
We discuss production of charm and bottom quarks at forward rapidity in pp collisions at the LHC, updating the QCD predictions for the run at \sqrt{S}=13 TeV. We show that, while the absolute rates suffer from large theoretical systematics, dominated by scale uncertainties, the increase relative to the rates precisely measured at 7 TeV can be predicted with an accuracy of a few percent, sufficient to highlight the sensitivity to the gluon distribution function.
The LHC Run III will be a crucial run for the two LHC forward experiments: LHCf and FASER. In particular, Run III will be the last run where the LHCf detector can operate and, at the same time, the first run of the new FASER project. The LHCf experiment is dedicated to precise measurements of forward production, necessary to tune hadronic interaction models employed in cosmic-ray physics. In Run III, the experiment will accomplish two fundamental goals: operating in p-p collisions at $\sqrt{s} = $ 14 TeV, it will acquire a ten times larger statistics respect to Run II, in order to have precise…
Dilepton production in proton-proton collision through $γγ$-fusion with one proton scattered elastically while the second produces a hadron jet is considered. Semi-analytical formulas describing the cross section of a muon pair production are presented.
We propose a method to introduce Sudakov effects to the unintegrated gluon density promoting it to be hard scale dependent. The advantage of the approach is that it guarantees that the gluon density is positive definite and that the Sudakov effects cancel on integrated level. As a case study we apply the method to calculate angular correlations and $R_{pA}$ ratio for p+p vs. p+Pb collision in the production of forward-forward dijets.
We propose a charged, electrically neutral, and flavour changing Z' model to conciliate the apparent disagreement between the important excess found in the top-antitop Tevatron forward-backward asymmetry and the null -compatible with negative- results found in the LHC charge asymmetry. We show that this model contributes positively to the forward-backward asymmetry, whereas naturally a new cancellation is turned on at the LHC, yielding a null, or even negative, charge asymmetry. We found the region in parameter space that is simultaneously allowed by the stringent Tevatron and LHC observables.…
Forward-backward asymmetry $A_{\rm FB}$ is an essential observable to study the nature of coupling in the standard model and physics beyond the standard model, as shown at LEP and Tevatron. As a proton-proton collider, the LHC does not have the preferred direction contrary to her counterpart, namely, LEP and Tevatron. Therefore $A_{\rm FB}$ is not applicable at the LHC. However for the proton the momentum of valence quark is usually larger than that of the sea quark. Utilizing this feature we have defined a so-called one-side forward-backward asymmetry $A_{\rm OFB}$ for the top quark pair prod…
We propose and study the inclusive production of a forward $J/ψ$ and a very backward jet at the LHC as an observable to reveal high-energy resummation effects à la BFKL. Our different predictions are based on the various existing mechanisms to describe the production of the $J/ψ$, namely, NRQCD singlet and octet contributions, and the color evaporation model.
The innermost station of the present ATLAS forward muon detector needs to be upgraded for the super-LHC. We present a proposal to replace it with a sandwiched detector composed of several layers of small-radius Monitored Drift Tube chambers (sMDT) for precision tracking measurement and two stations of multi-gap Resistive Plate Chambers (mRPC) for triggering purpose. We describe the layout of the upgraded detector and the trigger strategy. Several modifications to the RPCs used in the ATLAS barrel region are needed to satisfy the super-LHC requirements. Various studies with the proposed mRPC ti…
We quantify the constraints on the flavour separation between the quarks and antiquarks in the proton provided by the recent forward weak gauge boson production data from the LHCb experiment at $\sqrt{s}=7$ and 8 TeV. Performed in the framework of the NNPDF3.1 global analysis, this study highlights the key role that the LHCb W and Z data have in achieving a robust quark flavour separation in the large-x region, including the strange and charm quarks. We demonstrate how the LHCb measurements lead to improved determinations of the the up and down quark PDFs in the region $x\ge 0.1$, with an unce…
The forward proton detectors, already existing at the LHC, are considered in the context of heavy ion collisions. It is shown that such detectors have the potential to measure nuclear debris originating from spectator nucleons. The geometric acceptance for different nuclei is studied, and how it is affected by the motion of the nucleons in the nucleus and by the experimental conditions. A possibility of extending the acceptance region is discussed.
Neutrino fluxes at high rapidity and at high energy are sensitive to QCD dynamics of heavy-flavor production in kinematic regions where measurements have not yet been made. The FASER$ν$ and SND@LHC experiments scheduled for Run 3 at the LHC and the proposed Forward Physics Facility with a suite of experiments during the High-Luminosity LHC phase will probe neutrinos at high pseudorapidity. This short paper reports on recent evaluations of the prompt $ν_τ+\barν_τ$ and $ν_e+\barν_e$ double-differential cross sections in $pp$ collisions at the Large Hadron Collider from the production and decays …
New light particles may be produced in large numbers in the far-forward region at the LHC and then decay to dark matter, which can be detected through its scattering in far-forward experiments. We consider the example of invisibly-decaying dark photons, which decay to dark matter through $A' \to χχ$. The dark matter may then be detected through its scattering off electrons $χe^- \to χe^-$. We consider the discovery potential of detectors placed on the beam collision axis 480 m from the ATLAS interaction point, including an emulsion detector (FASER$ν$2) and, for the first time, a Forward Liquid…
We present a state-of-the-art computation for the production of forward dijets in proton-proton and proton-lead collisions at the LHC, in rapidity domains covered by the ATLAS calorimeter and the planned FoCal extension of the ALICE detector. We use the small-x improved TMD (ITMD) formalism, together with collinearly improved TMD gluon distributions and full b-space Sudakov resummation, and discuss nonperturbative corrections due to hadronization and showers using the Pythia event generator. We observe that forward dijets in proton-nucleus collisions at moderately low pT are excellent probes o…
We study the phenomenology of same sign top pair production at the LHC in a model-independent way. The complete set of dimension six operators involving two top (or anti-top) quarks is introduced and the connection with all possible t- or s-channel particle exchanges is established. Only in the former case, same and opposite sign top pair production can be related. We find that while current Tevatron data disfavor t-channel models, other production mechanisms are viable and can be tested at the LHC.
Charged hadron production in hadron-hadron collisions with longitudinal momentum fraction Feynman-x, x_F, between 0.1 and 0.9 has not been measured above square root s = 63 GeV at the CERN Intersecting Storage Rings. I discuss a way to measure this at the Large Hadron Collider at square root s = 13 TeV, which is 40,000 times higher in equivalent fixed target energy, and important for understanding cosmic ray showers.
Charged particle multiplicities in proton-proton collisions measured in the LHCb detector at a centre-of-mass energy of $\sqrt s$=7 TeV in different windows of pseudorapidity $η$, in the forward region of the vertex detector are studied by using different statistical distributions. Three distributions are compared with the data and the moments of the distributions are calculated. The data constituting two sets, one of minimum bias events and another of hard QCD events are analysed. The distributions considered derive from different functional forms based on underlying interaction dynamics. The…
We provide a description of the transverse momentum spectrum of single inclusive forward jets produced at the LHC, at the center-of-mass energies of 7 and 13 TeV, using the high energy factorization (HEF) framework. We subsequently study double inclusive forward jet production and, in particular, we calculate contributions to azimuthal angle distributions coming from double parton scattering. We also compare our results for double inclusive jet production to those obtained with the Pythia Monte Carlo generator. This comparison confirms that the HEF resummation acts like an initial state parton…
