PHYSICS LETTERS B, cilt.761, ss.158-178, 2016 (SCI-Expanded)
A measurement of the total ppcross section at the LHC at root s = 8TeV is presented. An integrated luminosity of 500 mu b(-1) was accumulated in a special run with high-beta* beam optics to measure the differential elastic cross section as a function of the Mandelstam momentum transfer variable t. The measurement is performed with the ALFA sub-detector of ATLAS. Using a fit to the differential elastic cross section in the -t range from 0.014 GeV2 to 0.1 GeV2 to extrapolate t -> 0, the total cross section, sigma(tot)( pp -> X), is measured via the optical theorem to be