The LHCf Experiment at CERN: Motivations and Current Status

An important experiment for cosmic ray physics is going to be conducted with the colliding proton beams of the CERN LHC. The equivalent energy of the 14 TeV center of mass energy of the colliding proton beams in the LHC is 1017eV in the laboratory frame. Two small electromagnetic calorimeters have been installed at zero degree collision angle +/-140m from the interaction point IP1. The calorimeters measure the energies and the positions of the axes of showers produced by forward neutral particles created in the proton-proton collisions. The shower calorimeters are therefore able to measure the production cross-section of neutral pions emitted in the very forward region. The experimental results will be obtained during the early operation phase of LHC when the luminosity is below 1030cm-2s-1. The data obtained will be extremely important for benchmarking the various Monte Carlo codes used for interpreting super high energy cosmic ray phenomena.