Heavy Ion Physics at LHC

Abstract

The study of heavy ion interactions constitutes an important part of the experimental program outlined for the Large Hadron Collider under construction at CERN and expected to be operational by 2006. ALICE 1 is the single detector having the capabilities to explore at the same time most of the characteristics of high energy heavy ion interactions. Specific studies of jet quenching and quarkonia production, essentially related to µ detection are also planned by CMS 2 .