Table of contents

The possibility of colliding heavy nuclei with high luminosity at the Large Hadron Collider, expected to start operating in 2007 at CERN, offers a unique opportunity to investigate the behaviour of strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions of compression and heating. This will allow unprecedented tests of our understanding of equilibration processes and equilibrium states in Quantum Chromo-Dynamics (QCD), the fundamental theory of strong interactions. In particular, equilibrium QCD predicts that a phase transition to a plasma of deconfined partons, (the Quark–Gluon Plasma, or QGP), occurs at a critical energy density which is within experimental reach. Measurements at the LHC will probe extensively the properties of the bulk partonic matter produced in nucleus–nucleus collisions. The ALICE experiment—presently under construction—is the only LHC experiment designed specifically for the study of nucleus–nucleus collisions.

This special issue of Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics is dedicated to the publication of the first volume of the ALICE Physics Performance Report. The report offers an extended description of the design of the experiment and a detailed study of its expected performance against a series of benchmark measurements in all the main areas of ultra-relativistic nucleus–nucleus physics.

This volume contains an overview of the physics topics that will be addressed by the experiment and a description of the LHC experimental conditions, of the detector subsystems and of the reconstruction and analysis tools. Volume II, currently under preparation, will include a complete study of the combined performance of the detector, event reconstruction and analysis for the measurement of a representative selection of physics observables.

Through publication of the ALICE Physics Performance Report in Journal of Physics G, we hope to offer to the wider physics community an in-depth view of the research potential provided by this unique scientific instrument.

Publisher's note

Please provide the following details when citing this Report:

ALICE Collaboration 2004 ALICE: Physics Performance Report, Volume I   J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys.30 1517–1763

or, in shorter format:

ALICE Collaboration 2004 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys.30 1517–1763

The online version may be cited as: stacks.iop.org/JPhysG/30/1517

ALICE is a general-purpose heavy-ion experiment designed to study the physics of strongly interacting matter and the quark–gluon plasma in nucleus–nucleus collisions at the LHC. It currently includes more than 900 physicists and senior engineers, from both nuclear and high-energy physics, from about 80 institutions in 28 countries.

The experiment was approved in February 1997. The detailed design of the different detector systems has been laid down in a number of Technical Design Reports issued between mid-1998 and the end of 2001 and construction has started for most detectors.

Since the last comprehensive information on detector and physics performance was published in the ALICE Technical Proposal in 1996, the detector as well as simulation, reconstruction and analysis software have undergone significant development. The Physics Performance Report (PPR) will give an updated and comprehensive summary of the current status and performance of the various ALICE subsystems, including updates to the Technical Design Reports, where appropriate, as well as a description of systems which have not been published in a Technical Design Report.

The PPR will be published in two volumes. The current Volume I contains:

1. a short theoretical overview and an extensive reference list concerning the physics topics of interest to ALICE,

2. relevant experimental conditions at the LHC,

3. a short summary and update of the subsystem designs, and

4. a description of the offline framework and Monte Carlo generators.

Volume II, which will be published separately, will contain detailed simulations of combined detector performance, event reconstruction, and analysis of a representative sample of relevant physics observables from global event characteristics to hard processes.