The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) should start its activity of data taking by
the end of summer 2009, and will provide beams of p-p and Pb-Pb at colliding
energies up to 14 TeV and 5.5 ATeV respectively. The Pb-Pb heavy-ion program
aims at reaching the necessary conditions to create a deconfined state of
partons, the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), whose study is one of the most exciting
physics topics to be explored thanks to the possibilites offered by this
new-generation accelerator. In particular, the "soft" observables related to
low and intermediate pT processes, will shed light on many fundamental
properties of the system, such as thermodynamic parameters, chemical
composition, expansion velocity etc. The p-p collisions will be of great
interest as well, since they will serve as an essential reference for heavy
ions.
ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is the LHC experiment dedicated to
the study of the QGP. Its large acceptance and low magnetic field make it
particularly suited for the study of soft phenomena. After having given an
overview of this detector, I will present the main motivations and prospects
for soft physics in both p-p and Pb-Pb collisions.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Proceedings of the Lake Louise Winter Institute
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