The RICH system of the LHCb experiment: Its performance, limits and proposed upgrade

The LHCb experiment has been successfully taking data at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN since the end of 2009. One of its key detector components is the Ring-Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) system. It provides charged particle identification over a wide momentum range, from 2 to 100 GeV/c. It consists of two RICH detectors that cover between them the full angular acceptance of the experiment, 15-300 mrad with respect to the beam axis. The LHCb RICH system has been performing extremely well and is providing the LHCb experiment with a robust, reliable and precise particle identification system for all hadronic processes. Particle identification performance is presented, as measured using data from the LHC. A few important physics channels, where PID is critical for the correct evaluation of high energy processes will be shown. At present, LHCb is preparing for three years of intense data taking, before entering a proposed upgrade, which should push it further in the possible realm of new physics and should improve statistical relevance of flavour physics quantities. The main option for the RICH system upgrade will be described.