\chapter{The \LHCb experiment} \label{chap:MoreStuff} \chapterquote{There, sir! that is the perfection of vessels!} {Jules Verne, 1828--1905} \section{The \LHC} The Large Hadron Collider (\LHC) at \CERN is a new hadron collider, located in the same tunnel as the Large Electron-Positron collider (\LEP)~\cite{Brianti:2004qq}. Where \LEP's chief task was the use of \unit{90--207}{\GeV} \epluseminus collisions to establish the precision physics of electroweak unification\dots \begin{figure} \includegraphics[width=\largefigwidth]{ckmfitter-alpha-combined} \caption[CKM Fitter constraints on \alphaCKM.]% {CKM Fitter constraints on \alphaCKM from combined \BToPiPi, \BToRhoPi and \BToRhoRho decay analyses.} \label{fig:CKMFitter} \end{figure} \section{The \LHCb experiment} \label{sec:LHCbInDetail} Since both \bhadron{s} are preferentially produced in the same direction and are forward-boosted along the beam-pipe, the detector is not required to have full $4\pi$ solid-angle coverage. \LHCb takes advantage of this by using a wedge-shaped single-arm detector with angular acceptance \unit{10-300}{\mrad} in the horizontal (bending) plane~\cite{Amato:1998xt}. \vspace{1cm} \begin{center} {\hspace{1mm}\Large\vdots\hspace{1cm}} \end{center} \vspace{1cm} The detector is illustrated in \FigureRef{fig:LHCbCrossSection}, showing the overall scale of the experiment and the surrounding cavern structure. \begin{sidewaysfigure} %\begin{center} \includegraphics[width=0.8\textheight]{lhcb-detector-cross-section} \caption[Cross-section view of \LHCb, cut in the non-bending $y-z$ plane]% {Cross-section view of \LHCb, cut in the non-bending $y-z$ plane.} \label{fig:LHCbCrossSection} %\end{center} \end{sidewaysfigure} The single-sided detector design was chosen in preference to a two-armed design since the detector dimensions are restricted by the layout of the IP8 (ex-Delphi) cavern in which \LHCb is located. Using all the available space for a single-arm spectrometer more than compensates in performance for the \about{50\percent} drop in luminosity. \section{The \Cerenkov mechanism} A Huygens construction in terms of spherical shells of probability for photon emission as the particle progresses along its track shows an effective ``shock-front'' of \Cerenkov emission. This corresponds to an emission cone of opening angle \thetaCerenkov around the momentum vector for each point on the track, % \begin{subequations} \label{eq:cosThetaCk} \begin{equation} \cos\,\thetaCerenkov &= \frac{1}{n \beta} + \frac{\hbar k}{2p}% \parenths{ 1 - \frac{1}{n^2} } \\ &\,\sim \frac{1}{n \beta}% \label{eq:cosThetaCkApprox} \end{equation} \end{subequations} % where $\beta \equiv v/c$, the relativistic velocity fraction, \section{Trigger system} \label{sec:triggers} An overview of the \LHCb trigger characteristics broken down by level is shown in \Table~\ref{tab:TriggerDetails}: \begin{table}[bht] \begin{tabular}{lllll} & L0 & L1 & HLT \\ \midrule Input rate & \unit{40}{\MHz} & \unit{1}{\MHz} & \unit{40}{\kHz} \\ Output rate & \unit{1}{\MHz} & \unit{40}{\kHz} & \unit{2}{\kHz} \\ Location & On detector & Counting room & Counting room \\ \end{tabular} \caption{Characteristics of the trigger levels and offline analysis.} \label{tab:TriggerDetails} \end{table}