LHCspin: a Polarized Gas Target for LHC
Abstract
The goal of the LHCspin project is to develop innovative solutions for measuring the 3D structure of nucleons in high-energy polarized fixed-target collisions at LHC, exploring new processes and exploiting new probes in a unique, previously unexplored, kinematic regime. A precise multi-dimensional description of the hadron structure has, in fact, the potential to deepen our understanding of the strong interactions and to provide a much more precise framework for measuring both Standard Model and Beyond Standard Model observables. This ambitious task poses its basis on the recent experience with the successful installation and operation of the SMOG2 unpolarized gas target in front of the LHCb spectrometer. Besides allowing for interesting physics studies ranging from astrophysics to heavy-ion physics, SMOG2 provides an ideal benchmark for studying beam-target dynamics at the LHC and demonstrates the feasibility of simultaneous operation with beam-beam collisions. With the installation of the proposed polarized target system, LHCb will become the first experiment to simultaneously collect data from unpolarized beam-beam collisions at =14 TeV and polarized and unpolarized beam-target collisions at 100 GeV. LHCspin has the potential to open new frontiers in physics by exploiting the capabilities of the world's most powerful collider and one of the most advanced spectrometers. This document also highlights the need to perform an R\&D campaign and the commissioning of the apparatus at the LHC Interaction Region 4 during the Run 4, before its final installation in LHCb. This opportunity could also allow to undertake preliminary physics measurements with unprecedented conditions.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2504.16034,
title = {LHCspin: a Polarized Gas Target for LHC},
author = {A. Accardi and A. Bacchetta and L. Barion and G. Bedeschi and V. Benesova and S. Bertelli and V. Bertone and C. Bissolotti and M. Boglione and G. Bozzi and N. Bundaleski and V. Carassiti and F. G. Celiberto and Z. Chen and G. Ciullo and M. Constantinou and P. Costa Pinto and A. Courtoy and U. D'Alesio and C. De Angelis and E. De Lucia and I. Denisenko and P. Di Nezza and M. Diehl and F. Donato and N. Doshita and O. M. N. Duarte Teodoro and M. G. Echevarria and T. El-Kordy and R. Engels and F. Fabiano and I. P. Fernando and M. Ferro-Luzzi and C. Flore and L. Gamberg and G. R. Goldstein and J. O. Gonzalez-Hernandez and B. Gou and A. Gridin and A. Guskov and C. Hadjidakis and V. Hejny and T. Iwata and D. Keller and N. Koch and A. Kotzinian and J. P. Lansberg and P. Lenisa and X. Li and H. W. Lin and S. Liuti and R. Longo and M. Maggiora and G. Manca and S. Mariani and J. Matousek and T. Matsuda and A. Metz and M. Mirazita and Y. Miyachi and A. Movsisyan and F. Murgia and A. Nass and E. R. Nocera and C. Oppedisano and L. L. Pappalardo and B. Parsamyan and B. Pasquini and M. Pesek and A. Piccoli and C. Pisano and D. Pitonyak and J. Pretz and A. Prokudin and M. Radici and F. Rathmann and M. Rotondo and M. Santimaria and G. Schnell and R. Shankar and A. Signori and D. Sivers and S. Squerzanti and M. Stancari and E. Steffens and L. Sun and H. Suzuki and G. Tagliente and F. Tessarotto and C. Van Hulse and Q. Xu and Z. Ye and J. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.16034},
year = {2025}
}