The ALICE Experiment Laboratory - Overview

Full text: The Laboratory is involved in research with ultrarelativistic heavy ions: the NA49 experiment at the CERN SPS and the preparation of the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC. The aim of the NA49 experiment is to study the production of charged hadrons and charged and neutral strange particles in collisions of ultrarelativistic hadrons and nuclei with nuclear targets. Secondary particle multiplicities, single-particle spectra, two-pion correlations (boson interferometry) and the production of strangeness (Λ, Σ and Ω hyperons, Φ-mesons, and both, neutral and charged, kaons), are investigated in a search for the phase transition of nuclear matter to the Quark-Gluon Plasma predicted by Lattice QCD. In fact, compelling evidence for this new state of matter was announced at CERN in February 2000, with the NA49 experiment listed among contributors to this achievement. The investigation of proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions, initially meant merely as reference data for nucleus-nucleus collisions, evolved in recent years into a separate and very interesting field of research. ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is a dedicated detector for heavy ion physics at the LHC whose goal is to pursue similar research at much higher energies. The LHC is expected to deliver lead ion beams colliding at the centre-of-mass energy of 5.5 A TeV. The experiment was approved by the CERN Management on February 6, 1997 and should be on the floor in the year 2006, when the LHC is expected to enter into operation. A more detailed description of our activities in both experiments can be found in three short articles below. (author)