Formation and detection of centauro in Pb $plus$ Pb collisions at the LHC

We present a phenomenological model describing the formation of a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) fireball in the very forward, baryon-rich rapidity region in nucleus-nucleus interactions, and its subsequent decay into baryons and possibly strangelets. The model explains the centauro events observed in cosmic rays and the long-penetrating component frequently accompanying them, and makes predictions for the LHC. We describe the CASTOR calorimeter, a subdetector to probe the very forward, baryon-rich rapidity region in Pb + Pb collisions at the LHC. The simulated response of the calorimeter to new effects is presented and its sensitivity is derived using a neural network technique.