Alignment of the ALICE Inner Tracking System with cosmic-ray tracks (original) (raw)

The ALICE vertex detector: Focus on the micro-strip layers

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 2006

The ALICE experiment, which is being installed at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, is designed to operate in a high-track density environment which is typical of relativistic heavy ions physics. This paper reports the main characteristics of the Inner Tracking System (ITS) of ALICE and describes the Silicon Strip Detector, which forms the two outermost layers of the ITS.

First proton–proton collisions at the LHC as observed with the ALICE detector: measurement of the charged-particle pseudorapidity density at sqrts=900\sqrt{s}=900sqrts=900 GeV

The European Physical Journal C, 2010

On 23 rd November 2009, during the early commissioning of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), two counter-rotating proton bunches were circulated for the first time concurrently in the machine, at the LHC injection energy of 450 GeV per beam. Although the proton intensity was very low, with only one pilot bunch per beam, and no systematic attempt was made to optimize the collision optics, all LHC experiments reported a number of collision candidates. In the ALICE experiment, the collision region was centred very well in both the longitudinal and transverse directions and 284 events were recorded in coincidence with the two passing proton bunches. The events were immediately reconstructed and analyzed both online and offline. We have used these events to measure the pseudorapidity density of charged primary particles in the central region. In the range |η| < 0.5, we obtain dN ch /dη = 3.10 ± 0.13(stat.) ± 0.22(syst.) for all inelastic interactions, and dN ch /dη = 3.51 ± 0.15(stat.) ± 0.25(syst.) for non-single diffractive interactions. These results are consistent with previous measurements in proton-antiproton interactions at the same centre-of-mass energy at the CERN SppS collider. They also illustrate the excellent functioning and rapid progress of the LHC accelerator, and of both the hardware and software of the ALICE experiment, in this early start-up phase.

Alignment of the CMS silicon tracker during commissioning with cosmic rays

2010

The CMS silicon tracker, consisting of 1440 silicon pixel and 15 148 silicon strip detector modules, has been aligned using more than three million cosmic ray charged particles, with additional information from optical surveys. The positions of the modules were determined with respect to cosmic ray trajectories to an average precision of 3-4 microns RMS in the barrel and 3-14 microns RMS in the endcap in the most sensitive coordinate. The results have been validated by several studies, including laser beam cross-checks, track fit self-consistency, track residuals in overlapping module regions, and track parameter resolution, and are compared with predictions obtained from simulation. Correlated systematic effects have been investigated. The track parameter resolutions obtained with this alignment are close to the design performance.

Measurement of charm production at central rapidity in proton-proton collisions at sqrts\sqrt{s}sqrts = 7 TeV

Journal of High Energy Physics, 2012

The p t -differential inclusive production cross sections of the prompt charmed mesons D 0 , D + , and D * + in the rapidity range |y| < 0.5 were measured in proton-proton collisions at √ s = 7 TeV at the LHC using the ALICE detector. Reconstructing the decays D 0 → K − π + , D + → K − π + π + , D * + → D 0 π + , and their charge conjugates, about 8,400 D 0 , 2,900 D + , and 2,600 D * + mesons with 1 < p t < 24 GeV/c were counted, after selection cuts, in a data sample of 3.14 × 10 8 events collected with a minimum-bias trigger (integrated luminosity L int = 5 nb −1 ). The results are described within uncertainties by predictions based on perturbative QCD.

First proton-proton collisions at the LHC as observed with the ALICE detector: measurement of the charged-particle pseudorapidity density at root s= 900 GeV

The European Physical …, 2010

On 23 rd November 2009, during the early commissioning of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), two counter-rotating proton bunches were circulated for the first time concurrently in the machine, at the LHC injection energy of 450 GeV per beam. Although the proton intensity was very low, with only one pilot bunch per beam, and no systematic attempt was made to optimize the collision optics, all LHC experiments reported a number of collision candidates. In the ALICE experiment, the collision region was centred very well in both the longitudinal and transverse directions and 284 events were recorded in coincidence with the two passing proton bunches. The events were immediately reconstructed and analyzed both online and offline. We have used these events to measure the pseudorapidity density of charged primary particles in the central region. In the range |η| < 0.5, we obtain dN ch /dη = 3.10 ± 0.13(stat.) ± 0.22(syst.) for all inelastic interactions, and dN ch /dη = 3.51 ± 0.15(stat.) ± 0.25(syst.) for non-single diffractive interactions. These results are consistent with previous measurements in proton-antiproton interactions at the same centre-of-mass energy at the CERN SppS collider. They also illustrate the excellent functioning and rapid progress of the LHC accelerator, and of both the hardware and software of the ALICE experiment, in this early start-up phase.

Alignment of the CMS silicon strip tracker during stand-alone commissioning

Journal of …, 2009

The results of the CMS tracker alignment analysis are presented using the data from cosmic tracks, optical survey information, and the laser alignment system at the Tracker Integration Facility at CERN. During several months of operation in the spring and summer of 2007, about five million cosmic track events were collected with a partially active CMS Tracker. This allowed us to perform first alignment of the active silicon modules with the cosmic tracks using three different statistical approaches; validate the survey and laser alignment system performance; and test the stability of Tracker structures under various stresses and temperatures ranging from +15 °C to −15 °C. Comparison with simulation shows that the achieved alignment precision in the barrel part of the tracker leads to residual distributions similar to those obtained with a random misalignment of 50 (80) μm RMS in the outer (inner) part of the barrel.

ALICE: Physics Performance Report, Volume I

Journal of Physics G-nuclear and Particle Physics, 2004

ALICE is a general-purpose heavy-ion experiment designed to study the physics of strongly interacting matter and the quark-gluon plasma in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC. It currently includes more than 900 physicists and senior engineers, from both nuclear and high-energy physics, from about 80 institutions in 28 countries.