Total pp Cross Section at TOTEM

One of the main aims of the TOTEM experiment at CERN is to measure the pp total cross section at LHC energies, for which current predictions based on diverse approaches and models are quite different. Typical estimations give values in the range 90-130 mb at a center- of-mass energy of 14 TeV. Only a precise measurement may give the distinction between individual models and TOTEM should provide the value with a precision of 1-2%. To achieve this goal TOTEM plans to use the so-called “luminosity independent method”. An overview of this method will be given. It will be clearly distinguished between experimental input, i.e. what is necessary to measure, and model dependent calculations which are also needed.