ALICE is a general-purpose heavy-ion experiment designed to study the physics of strongly interacting matter and the quark–gluon plasma in nucleus–nucleus collisions at the LHC. It currently involves more than 900 physicists and senior engineers, from both the nuclear and high-energy physics sectors, from over 90 institutions in about 30 countries.The ALICE detector is designed to cope with the highest particle multiplicities above those anticipated for Pb–Pb collisions (dNch/dy up to 8000) and it will be operational at the start-up of the LHC. In addition to heavy systems, the ALICE Collaboration will study collisions of lower-mass ions, which are a means of varying the energy density, and protons (both pp and pA), which primarily provide reference data for the nucleus–nucleus collisions. In addition, the pp data will allow for a number of genuine pp physics studies.The detailed design of the different detector systems has been laid down in a number of Technical Design Reports issued between mid-1998 and the end of 2004. The experiment is currently under construction and will be ready for data taking with both proton and heavy-ion beams at the start-up of the LHC.Since the comprehensive information on detector and physics performance was last published in the ALICE Technical Proposal in 1996, the detector, as well as simulation, reconstruction and analysis software have undergone significant development. The Physics Performance Report (PPR) provides an updated and comprehensive summary of the performance of the various ALICE subsystems, including updates to the Technical Design Reports, as appropriate.The PPR is divided into two volumes. Volume I, published in 2004 (CERN/LHCC 2003-049, ALICE Collaboration 2004 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 30 1517–1763), contains in four chapters a short theoretical overview and an extensive reference list concerning the physics topics of interest to ALICE, the experimental conditions at the LHC, a short summary and update of the subsystem designs, and a description of the offline framework and Monte Carlo event generators.The present volume, Volume II, contains the majority of the information relevant to the physics performance in proton–proton, proton–nucleus, and nucleus–nucleus collisions. Following an introductory overview, Chapter 5 describes the combined detector performance and the event reconstruction procedures, based on detailed simulations of the individual subsystems. Chapter 6 describes the analysis and physics reach for a representative sample of physics observables, from global event characteristics to hard processes.

To extend the dosimetric reference system to field sizes smaller than 2 cm × 2 cm, the LNE-LNHB laboratory is studying an approach based on a new dosimetric quantity named the dose-area product instead of the commonly used absorbed dose at a point. A graphite calorimeter and a plane parallel ion chamber with a sensitive surface of 3 cm diameter were designed and built for measurements in fields of 2, 1 and 0.75 cm diameter. The detector surface being larger than the beam section, most of the issues linked with absolute dose measurements at a point could be avoided. Calibration factors of the plane parallel ionization chamber were established in terms of dose-area product in water for small fields with an uncertainty smaller than 0.9%.

Within the Euramet JRP7 project External Beam Cancer Therapy, a work package was dedicated to the primary standards for IMRT (intensity modulated radiation therapy). The French national metrology laboratory for ionizing radiations, LNE-LNHB, was involved in determining absorbed dose to water based on graphite calorimeters in 6 MV and 12 MV beams for field sizes of 10 cm × 10 cm, 4 cm × 4 cm and 2 cm × 2 cm. The existing GR-09 graphite calorimeter has been successfully used for the beam sizes of 10 cm × 10 cm and 4 cm × 4 cm whereas it was not small enough to perform measurements in the 2 cm × 2 cm beam size. Therefore, during the project a small section graphite calorimeter, GR-10, has been developed. This work deals with the design, construction and tests of this new graphite calorimeter.