Upgrade and physics perspective of ALICE at the LHC

Abstract

ALICE at the LHC, collecting data in Pb-Pb, p-Pb and pp collisions, aims for the characterisation of the strongly interacting matter at unprecedented energy densities. While the first running period until 2018 can provide detailed description of the global and bulk phenomena and a first set of intriguing results on rare probes of heavy-ion collisions, many important questions involving rare processes cannot be addressed in details with the current experimental setup. In this talk, we give an overview of the ALICE Upgrade program focusing on the physics prospects related to heavy-quarks, quarkonia, low-mass dileptons, jets and exotica searches achievable in high luminosity Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC. We also discuss the technological challenges and choices of the detector upgrades to be installed during the LHC Long Shutdown 2.