Speaker
Summary
ALICE is one of the four large detectors at the LHC. It focuses on the study of heavy ion collisions at ultra-relativistic energies. Its main goal is to study in great detail the properties of matter under extreme energy densities. We discuss some aspects of the ALICE research program, the experiment future plans as well as some general items of the ALICE upgrade.
The present detector allows some studies on diffractive physics and photon photon induced processes. A new set of scintillation pad stations is successfully providing now beam diagnostic information. Integrating these detectors in the read out of the experiment would increase the efficiency for diffractive processes in proton proton collisions. These scintillation pads would tag the diffractive gap at larger rapidity values than those of the present coverage.