Performance studies for the prototype III of CASTOR — forward calorimeter at the CMS experiment

We present preliminary results of the performance of prototype III of the CASTOR quartz-tungsten sampling calorimeter, to be installed in the very forward region of the CMS experiment at the LHC. The energy linearity and resolution, as well as the spatial resolution of the prototype to electromagnetic and hadronic showers are studied with E= 10−200 GeV electrons, E= 20−350 GeV pions, and E= 50, 150 GeV muons in beam tests carried out at CERN/SPS in 2007.     

Detector Effects on the Response of a Highly Granular Hadron Calorimeter to Single Hadrons

In the detectors currently being developed for experiments on the next-generation lepton colliders, highly granular calorimeters are to be used. In particular, the hadron calorimeter is planned to be assembled from scintillation cells with direct readout of light by silicon photomultipliers. According to the results of experimental measurements of the light collection in a cell developed for the CALICE prototype hadron calorimeter, when detecting minimum ionizing particles, an estimate of the detector effects was obtained. The detector effect on the resolution of the ILD hadron calorimeter was studied by modeling the response of the detector to single neutral kaons. It was shown that the contribution of experimentally measured detector effects to the resolution for single particles is on the order of 0.5–1% in the range of hadron energy of 5–60 GeV.     

Time-of-flight system for the multipurpose detector (MPD)

A conceptual design for a multipurpose detector (MPD) [1] is proposed for the study of hot and dense barony matter in collisions of heavy ions over the atomic mass range A = 1–197 at center-of-mass energies of up to 11 GeV (for Au⁷⁹⁺). The MPD experiment is scheduled to be performed at a future JINR accelerator complex facility for heavy ions, the Nuclotron-based Ion Collider Facility (NICA), which is designed to reach the required parameters with an average luminosity of L = 10²⁹ cm⁻² s⁻¹. Identification of charged hadrons (PIDs) at intermediate momenta (0.1–2 GeV/c) is achieved via time-of-flight (TOF) measurements. As a base element of the TOF detector, we consider a 10 gap MRPC with a strip or pad readout. Results from an MRCP prototype test are presented.     

Method for reconstructing the gamma-ray arrival direction in the converter + calorimeter system

When designing devices of modern gamma astronomy, one of the most important problems is achieving the maximum possible angular resolution. This study is devoted to the method for reconstructing the arrival direction of primary gamma-rays with energies E _γ > 10 GeV in the GAMMA-400 satellite experiment. By the example of the GAMMA-400 gamma telescope, the possibility of improving the angular resolution of gamma telescopes incorporating a “converter + calorimeter” system is shown. The dependence of the angular resolution on the step of silicon strips used to determine the coordinates of incident particles in the converter and calorimeter and the distance between the converter and calorimeter is analyzed.     

The ideal resolution of a liquid xenon calorimeter

The energy and angular resolution of a liquid xenon calorimeter for gamma rays in the GeV region is studied by a Monte-Carlo simulation. For a size of (70 cm)³, the energy resolution becomes as good as 0.2 % (r.m.s) at 10 GeV. The angular resolution is order of 1° (median angle) at several GeV without using the pair converter separated from the main body of the calorimeter. An effective SΩ of 1 m²sr is attainable. These factors meet the conditions required for observation of line gamma rays emerging from the annihilation of a sort of hypothetical dark matter.     

Measurement of diffractive photoproduction of vector mesons at large momentum transfer at HERA

Elastic and proton–dissociative photoproduction of , and vector mesons (, , respectively) have been measured in interactions at HERA up to GeV, where t is the four-momentum transfer squared at the photon–vector–meson vertex. The analysis is based on a data sample in which photoproduction reactions were tagged by detection of the scattered positron in a special-purpose calorimeter. This limits the photon virtuality, , to values less than 0.01 GeV, and selects a average center-of-mass energy of = 94 GeV. Results for the differential cross sections, , for , and mesons are presented and compared to the results of recent QCD calculations. Results are also presented for the t-dependence of the pion-pair invariant-mass distribution in the mass region and of the spin-density matrix elements determined from the decay-angle distributions. The Pomeron trajectory has been derived from measurements of the W dependence of the elastic differential cross sections for both and mesons. Received: 16 October 1999 / Revised version: 17 January 2000 / Published online: 6 April 2000     

Study of characteristics of an electromagnetic calorimeter based on PbWO<Subscript>4</Subscript> crystals

Characteristics of a prototype of the electromagnetic calorimeter based on PbWO₄ scintillation crystals were studied. Measurements were performed using the electron beam of the DESY synchrotron in the range of 1–6 GeV. The energy resolution of the prototype was σ/E = 2.4%/E ⊕ 3.9% / √E ⊕ 1.2%.     

Measurement of the mass and the width of the W boson at LEP

The mass and the total decay width of the W boson are measured with the L3 detector at the LEP e⁺e^– collider using W-boson pairs produced in 0.7 fb^–1 of data collected at centre-of-mass energies between 161 and 209 GeV. Combining semi-leptonic and fully-hadronic final states, the mass and the width of the W boson are determined to be

Energy dependence of proton and antiproton production in central Pb+Pb collisions from NA49

Recent results of the NA49 collaboration on the production of p and p̄ at midrapidity in central Pb+Pb collisions in the beam energy range 20–158 A  GeV are presented. The preliminary results for the rapidity distributions of p and p̄ at 40 A  GeV are also discussed. PACS 25.75.Dw     

Calibration of scintillation counters of the upgraded calorimeter of the IHEP-JINR Neutrino Detector for time of flight particle identification

In this paper, specific features of operation of the calorimeter of the IHEP-JINR Neutrino Detector on the basis of liquid scintillation counters upgraded for time of flight particle identification are described. Data acquisition system, algorithms of response reconstruction, and calibration of calorimeter counters are described in detail. Estimate of time and spatial resolution of counters is obtained on tracks of vertical cosmic muons. The averaged time resolution is σ = 1.2 ns, and the coordinate resolution is σ = 13 cm.     

Measurement of the low-x behaviour of the photon structure function F_2^\gamma

The photon structure function has been measured using data taken by the OPAL detector at centre-of-mass energies of 91 GeV, 183 GeVand 189 \GeV, in ranges of 1.5–30.0 GeV (LEP1), and 7.0–30.0 GeV (LEP2), probing lower values of x than ever before. Since previous OPAL analyses, new Monte Carlo models and new methods, such as multi-variable unfolding, have been introduced, reducing significantly the model dependent systematic errors in the measurement. The results do not conclusively prove, but are completely consistent with, the presence of a rise in at low-x as expected from QCD. Received: 9 June 2000 / Published online: 13 November 2000     

Strangeness enhancement and energy dependence in heavy ion collisions

The canonical statistical model analysis of strange and multistrange hadron production in central A–A relative to p–p/p–A collisions is presented over the energy range from GeV up to GeV. It is shown that the relative enhancement of strange particle yields from p–p/p–A to A–A collisions substantially increases with decreasing collision energy. It is largest at GeV, where the enhancement of and is of the order of 100, 20 and 3, respectively. In terms of the model these results are due to the canonical suppression of particle thermal phase space at lower energies, which increases with the strangeness content of the particle and with decreasing size of the collision fireball. The comparison of the model with existing data on the energy dependence of the kaon/pion ratio is also discussed. Received: 25 October 2001 / Published online: 5 July 2002     

Large-angle production of charged pions by 3-12.9?GeV/c protons on beryllium, aluminium and lead targets

Measurements of the double-differential π^± production cross-section in the range of momentum 100 MeV/c≤p< 800 MeV/c and angle 0.35 rad ≤θ<  2.15 rad in proton–beryllium, proton–aluminium and proton–lead collisions are presented. The data were taken with the HARP detector in the T9 beam line of the CERN PS. The pions were produced by proton beams in a momentum range from 3 GeV/c to 12.9 GeV/c hitting a target with a thickness of 5% of a nuclear interaction length. The tracking and identification of the produced particles was performed using a small-radius cylindrical time projection chamber (TPC) placed inside a solenoidal magnet. Incident particles were identified by an elaborate system of beam detectors. Results are obtained for the double-differential cross-sections d²σ/dpdθ at six incident proton beam momenta (3 GeV/c, 5 GeV/c, 8 GeV/c, 8.9 GeV/c (Be only), 12 GeV/c and 12.9 GeV/c (Al only)) and compared to previously available data.     

Barrel calorimeter of the CMD-3 detector

The structure of the barrel calorimeter of the CMD-3 detector is presented in this work. The procedure of energy calibration of the calorimeter and the method of photon energy restoration are described. The distinctive feature of this barrel calorimeter is its combined structure; it is composed of two coaxial subsystems: a liquid xenon calorimeter and a crystalline CsI calorimeter. The calorimeter spatial resolution of the photon conversion point is about 2 mm, which corresponds to an angular resolution of ～6 mrad. The energy resolution of the calorimeter is about 8% for photons with energy of 200 MeV and 4% for photons with energy of 1 GeV.     

Effect of variations in the Earth’s electrical field caused by weather conditions on neutron monitoring

Variations in cosmic rays are investigated on the basis of the Tien Shan neutron monitor data. The Earth’s electrical field during snowfall, rain, and thunderstorm activity is considered as a modulating factor. It is established that the effect of the electrical field on the monitor data becomes apparent at values exceeding 15–20 kV m⁻¹ in the atmosphere of a thunderstorm. The response is as high as 1.5% for recorded particles with energies lower than 10 GeV.     

The strange border of the QCD phases

We address the flavour composition along the border between the hadronic and the quark–gluon plasma phases of QCD. The ratio of strange to up and down antiquarks () produced in particle and nuclear collisions is found to increase in collisions with an initially reached energy density () up to GeV/fm. Above this value it decreases approximately linearly and reaches its asymptotic value at zero baryon chemical potential (). We demonstrate that in nuclear collisions approaches its asymptotic value at –9 GeV/fm, corresponding to –8 TeV per pair, which will be reached at the LHC. After correcting for the difference in the chemical potentials of various colliding systems, universally saturates across the QCD phase boundary, following the temperature. Recent experimental puzzles as the increase in the ratio in collisions at 40 GeV per nucleon, its different behaviour at midrapidity, the decrease of the double ratio of in nucleus–nucleus over collisions with increasing , and the increase of in over collisions at the same , are naturally explained. We study the approach of thermodynamic observables at to the transition point and extract an estimate of the critical temperature. Received: 17 April 2001 / Published online: 24 August 2001     

The quark condensate in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions

We compute the modification of the quark condensate <ˉq q> in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions and estimate the 4-volume, where the quark condensate is small (<ˉqq>/<ˉqq>⁰≤ 0.1–0.3) using hadron phase-space distributions obtained with the quark-gluon string model. As a function of the beam energy the 4-volume rises sharply at a beam energy E^lab/A ≃ (2–5) GeV, remains roughly constant up to beam energies ≃ 20 GeV and rises at higher energies. At low energies the reduction of the condensate is mainly due to baryons, while at higher energies the rise of the 4-volume is due to the abundant mesons produced. Based on our results we expect that moderate beam energies on the order of 10 GeV per nucleon are favourable for studying the restoration of chiral symmetry in a baryon-rich environment in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Received: 4 December 1997 / Revised version: 31 July 1998     

Energy weighting for the upgrade of the CMS HCAL

In these simulation studies an energy weighting method is applied to the signals of the CMS hadronic calorimeter readout with a longitudinal segmentation for a possible future upgrade. Tabulated weighting factors are used to compensate for the different response of hadronic and electromagnetic energy depositions of simulated pion showers in the hadronic calorimeter. The weighting improves the relative energy resolution: $$ (\sigma _E /E)^2 = \left[ {((92.2 \pm 0.6)\% /\sqrt E )^2 + ((6.5 \pm 0.1)\% )^2 } \right] $$ (before weighting), $$ (\sigma _{E,weight} /E)^2 = \left[ {((85.4 \pm 0.5)\% /\sqrt E )^2 + ((4.4 \pm 0.1)\% )^2 } \right] $$ (after weighting), where E in the square root has units of GeV.     

Analytic coupling and Sudakov effects in exclusive processes: pion and \gamma ^*\gamma \to \pi ^0 form factors

We develop and discuss in technical detail an infrared-finite factorization and optimized renormalization scheme for calculating exclusive processes, which enables the inclusion of transverse degrees of freedom without entailing suppression of calculated observables, like form factors. This is achieved by employing an analytic, i.e., infrared stable, running strong-coupling which removes the Landau singularity at by a minimum power-behaved correction. The ensuing contributions to the cusp anomalous dimension – related to the Sudakov form factor – and to the quark anomalous dimension – which controls evolution – lead to an enhancement at high of the hard part of exclusive amplitudes, calculated in perturbative QCD, while simultaneously improving its scaling behavior. The phenomenological implications of this framework are analyzed by applying it to the pion's electromagnetic form factor, including the NLO contribution to the hard-scattering amplitude, and also to the pion–photon transition at LO. For the pion wave function, an improved ansatz of the Brodsky–Huang–Lepage type is employed, which includes an effective (constituent-like) quark mass, GeV. Predictions for both form factors are presented and compared to the experimental data, applying Brodsky–Lepage–Mackenzie commensurate scale setting. We find that the perturbative hard part prevails at momentum transfers above about 20 GeV, while at lower values the pion form factor is dominated by Feynman-type contributions. The theoretical prediction for the form factor indicates that the true pion distribution amplitude may be somewhat broader than the asymptotic one. Received: 19 May 2000 / Revised version: 16 August 2000 / Published online: 13 November 2000