Abstract A large-volume Time Projection Chamber (TPC) is the main tracking and particle identification (PID) detector of the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC. PID in the TPC is performed via specific ...energy-loss measurements (d E /d x ), which are derived from the average pulse-height distribution of ionization generated by charged-particle tracks traversing the TPC volume. During Runs 1 and 2, until 2018, the gas amplification stage was based on multiwire proportional chambers (MWPC). Signals from the MWPC show characteristic long negative tails after an initial positive peak due to the long ion drift times in the MWPC amplification region. This so-called ion tail can lead to a significant amplitude loss in subsequently measured signals, especially in the high-multiplicity environment of high-energy Pb-Pb collisions, which results in a degradation of the d E /d x resolution. A detailed study of the signal shapes measured with the ALICE TPC with the Ne-CO 2 (90-10) and Ar-CO 2 (90-10) gas mixtures is presented, and the results are compared with three-dimensional Garfield simulations. The impact of the ion tail on the PID performance is studied employing the ALICE simulation framework and the feasibility of an offline correction procedure to account for the ion tail is demonstrated.
Based on an evaluation of data on pion interferometry and on particle yields at midrapidity, we propose a universal condition for thermal freeze-out of pions in heavy-ion collisions. We show that ...freeze-out occurs when the mean free path of pions lambda(f) reaches a value of about 1 fm, which is much smaller than the spatial extent of the system at freeze-out. This critical mean free path is independent of the centrality of the collision and beam energy from the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.
We report on first measurements of low-mass electron-positron pairs in Pb-Au collisions at the CERN SPS beam energy of 40 AGeV. The observed pair yield integrated over the range of invariant masses ...0.2<m</=1 GeV/c(2) is enhanced over the expectation from neutral meson decays by a factor of 5.9+/-1.5(stat)+/-1.2(syst data)+/-1.8(syst meson decays), somewhat larger than previously observed at the higher energy of 158 AGeV. The results are discussed with reference to model calculations based on pi(+)pi(-)-->e(+)e(-) annihilation with a modified rho propagator. They may be linked to chiral symmetry restoration and support the notion that the in-medium modifications of the rho are more driven by baryon density than by temperature.
The Mu3e experiment searches for charged lepton flavor violation in the rare decay mu arrow right eee. In order to reach a sensitivity of better than 10 super(-16), more than 10 super(9) muon decays ...per second have to be observed over a running time of one year. Precise determination of particle momentum, vertex position and time are necessary for background suppression. These requirements can be met by combining an ultra-lightweight tracker based on High-Voltage Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (HV-MAPS) with a timing system which consists of a scintillating fiber detector and a tile hodoscope. As the momentum of particles from muon decay at rest is below 53 MeV/c, the silicon pixel tracker resolution is dominated by multiple Coulomb scattering. This leads to extreme requirements for the material budget of the tracking detector of below 0.1% of a radiation length per layer. Even though the target power consumption of the HV-MAPS detector is as low as 150mW/cm super(2), the detector cooling must be very efficient and at the same time avoid adding material inside the active tracking volume.
The first evidence of spin alignment of vector mesons ( K*0 and ϕ ) in heavy-ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is reported. The spin density matrix element ρ 00 is measured at ...midrapidity ( | y | < 0.5 ) in Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy ( √sNN ) of 2.76 TeV with the ALICE detector. ρ 00 values are found to be less than 1/3 (1/3 implies no spin alignment) at low transverse momentum ( p T < 2 GeV / c ) for K*0 and ϕ at a level of 3 σ and 2 σ , respectively. No significant spin alignment is observed for the K0S meson ( spin = 0 ) in Pb-Pb collisions and for the vector mesons in p p collisions. The measured spin alignment is unexpectedly large but qualitatively consistent with the expectation from models which attribute it to a polarization of quarks in the presence of angular momentum in heavy-ion collisions and a subsequent hadronization by the process of recombination.
At sufficiently high temperature and energy density, nuclear matter undergoes a transition to a phase in which quarks and gluons are not confined: the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Such an exotic state ...of strongly interacting quantum chromodynamics matter is produced in the laboratory in heavy nuclei high-energy collisions, where an enhanced production of strange hadrons is observed. Strangeness enhancement, originally proposed as a signature of QGP formation in nuclear collisions, is more pronounced for multi-strange baryons. Several effects typical of heavy-ion phenomenology have been observed in high-multiplicity proton-proton (pp) collisions, but the enhanced production of multi-strange particles has not been reported so far. Here we present the first observation of strangeness enhancement in high-multiplicity proton-proton collisions. We find that the integrated yields of strange and multi-strange particles, relative to pions, increases significantly with the event charged-particle multiplicity. The measurements are in remarkable agreement with the p-Pb collision results, indicating that the phenomenon is related to the final system created in the collision. In high-multiplicity events strangeness production reaches values similar to those observed in Pb-Pb collisions, where a QGP is formed.
The CERES/NA45 radial drift Time Projection Chamber Adamová, D.; Agakichiev, G.; Antończyk, D. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
08/2008, Letnik:
593, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The design, calibration, and performance of the first radial drift Time Projection Chamber (TPC) are presented. The TPC was built and installed at the CERES/NA45 experiment at the CERN SPS in the ...late nineties, with the objective to improve the momentum resolution of the spectrometer. The upgraded experiment took data twice, in 1999 and in 2000. After a detailed study of residual distortions a spatial resolution of
340
μ
m
in the azimuthal and
640
μ
m
in the radial direction was achieved, corresponding to a momentum resolution of
Δ
p
/
p
=
(
1
%
·
p
/
GeV
)
2
+
(
2
%
)
2
.
Comprehensive results on the production of unidentified charged particles, π±, K±, K$_S^0$, K*(892)0, $p, \bar{p}, ϕ$(1020), Λ, Λ, Ξ-, Ξ+, Ω-, and $\bar{Ω}^+$ hadrons in proton-proton ...(pp) collisions at $ \sqrt{s}$=7 TeV at midrapidity (|y|<0.5) as a function of charged-particle multiplicity density are presented. In order to avoid autocorrelation biases, the actual transverse momentum (pT) spectra of the particles under study and the event activity are measured in different rapidity windows. In the highest multiplicity class, the charged-particle density reaches about 3.5 times the value measured in inelastic collisions. While the yield of protons normalized to pions remains approximately constant as a function of multiplicity, the corresponding ratios of strange hadrons to pions show a significant enhancement that increases with increasing strangeness content. Furthermore, all identified particle-to-pion ratios are shown to depend solely on charged-particle multiplicity density, regardless of system type and collision energy. The evolution of the spectral shapes with multiplicity and hadron mass shows patterns that are similar to those observed in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at Large Hadron Collider energies. The obtained pT distributions and yields are compared to expectations from QCD-based pp event generators as well as to predictions from thermal and hydrodynamic models. These comparisons indicate that traces of a collective, equilibrated system are already present in high-multiplicity pp collisions.
The pseudorapidity density of charged particles, dNch / d η , at midrapidity in Pb-Pb collisions has been measured at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of √ s N N = 5.02 TeV . For the 5% ...most central collisions, we measure a value of 1943 ± 54 . The rise in dNch / d η as a function of √ s N N is steeper than that observed in proton-proton collisions and follows the trend established by measurements at lower energy. The increase of dNch / d η as a function of the average number of participant nucleons, ⟨ N part ⟩ , calculated in a Glauber model, is compared with the previous measurement at √ s N N = 2.76 TeV . A constant factor of about 1.2 describes the increase in dNch / d η from √ s N N = 2.76 to 5.02 TeV for all centrality classes, within the measured range of 0%–80% centrality. The results are also compared to models based on different mechanisms for particle production in nuclear collisions.
A
bstract
We report the measured transverse momentum (
p
T
) spectra of primary charged particles from pp, p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at a center-of-mass energy
s
N
N
=
5.02
TeV in the kinematic range ...of 0
.
15
< p
T
<
50 GeV/
c
and |
η
|
<
0
.
8. A significant improvement of systematic uncertainties motivated the reanalysis of data in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at
s
N
N
=
2.76
TeV, as well as in p-Pb collisions at
s
N
N
=
5.02
TeV, which is also presented. Spectra from Pb-Pb collisions are presented in nine centrality intervals and are compared to a reference spectrum from pp collisions scaled by the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. For central collisions, the
p
T
spectra are suppressed by more than a factor of 7 around 6–7 GeV/
c
with a significant reduction in suppression towards higher momenta up to 30 GeV/
c
. The nuclear modification factor
R
pPb
, constructed from the pp and p-Pb spectra measured at the same collision energy, is consistent with unity above 8 GeV/
c
. While the spectra in both pp and Pb-Pb collisions are substantially harder at
s
N
N
=
5.02
TeV compared to 2.76 TeV, the nuclear modification factors show no significant collision energy dependence. The obtained results should provide further constraints on the parton energy loss calculations to determine the transport properties of the hot and dense QCD matter.
PDF
