SLHC, the high-luminosity upgrade (R&D kick-off event)

In the morning of April 9th a public event is marking the start of R&D activities in preparation for a future LHC luminosity upgrade. Fully exploiting the LHC physics potential, including focused R&D for a luminosity upgrade, is marked as the highest priority of the European strategy for particle physics (approved by the CERN Council in July 2006). Various R&D activities for the LHC luminosity upgrade are now starting, thanks to several national funding sources, additional funding from the CERN member states to CERN (White Paper themes), as well as funding from the European Commission. The SLHC-PP project receives funding from the European Commission to coordinate the R&D for SLHC, to carry out specific R&D in a few selected subjects, and to bring the overall project to a state of maturity, where it can be brought forward for formal construction approval in a few years from now. The public SLHC R&D kick-off event is organized as part of the SLHC-PP project start-up and is intended to inform the particle physics community about the SLHC project in general: its physics motivation, the status of the LHC accelerator and injector upgrade plans, and the LHC detector upgrade plans.