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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Operation and performance of the ATLAS semiconductor tracker in LHC Run 2

The semiconductor tracker (SCT) is one of the tracking systems for charged particles in the ATLAS detector. It consists of 4088 silicon strip sensor modules. During Run 2 (2015–2018) the Large Hadron Collider delivered an integrated luminosity of 156 fb ₋1 to the ATLAS experiment at a centre-of-mass proton-proton collision energy of 13 TeV. The instantaneous luminosity and pile-up conditions were far in excess of those assumed in the original design of the SCT detector. Due to improvements to the data acquisition system, the SCT operated stably throughout Run 2. It was available for 99.9% of the integrated luminosity and achieved a data-quality efficiency of 99.85%. Detailed studies have been made of the leakage current in SCT modules and the evolution of the full depletion voltage, which are used to study the impact of radiation damage to the modules.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Protons in the NOvA Test Beam

The NOvA (NuMI Off-Axis electron neutrino Appearance) Experiment is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment composed of two functionally identical detectors, a 300 ton Near Detector, and a 14 kton Far Detector separated by 809 km and placed 14 mrad off the axis of the NuMI neutrino beam created at Fermilab. This configuration enables NOvA's rich neutrino physics program, which includes measuring neutrino mixing parameters, determining the neutrino mass hierarchy, and probing CP violation in the leptonic sector. The NOvA Test Beam experiment deployed at Fermilab between 2018 and 2022 used a scaled-down 30 ton detector to analyse tagged beamline particles. The beamline selected and identified electrons, muons, pions, kaons, and protons with momenta ranging from 0.4 to 1.8 GeV/c, as understanding how the detector responds to these particles found in the final state of neutrino interactions is crucial. This poster shows preliminary results from studies of proton response in the NOvA Test Beam detector.

Bannister, Emerson [Sussex U.] (ORCID:000000027535↗
DOE OSTI2026

Calibrated particle identification for Belle II

We present several efforts aimed at improving charged particle identification at the Belle II experiment. We define an ablation test to quantify and evaluate the impact of each sub-detector on the global particle identification performance. We demonstrate that the performance of the identification scheme can be improved via a simple calibration of the sub-detector likelihoods through a set of per hypothesis, per sub-detector weights. Finally, we present preliminary results on an improved definition of the likelihoods contributed by the electromagnetic calorimeter. A set of multiclass boosted decision trees is trained to exploit the shape of energy depositions of different particle species. In simulated $B\bar{B}$ events, the pion-to-electron and muon fake rates are reduced by 55% and 31% respectively at low-medium momentum.

Hohmann, Marcel [Univ. of Melbourne, Parkville, VI↗
DOE OSTI2026

Study of few-electron backgrounds in the LUX-ZEPLIN detector

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment aims to detect rare interactions between dark matter particles and xenon. Although the detector is designed to be the most sensitive to GeV/𝑐 2 –TeV/𝑐 2 weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), it is also capable of measuring low-energy ionization signals down to a single electron that may be produced by scatters of sub-GeV/𝑐 2 dark matter. The major challenge in exploiting this sensitivity is to understand and suppress the ionization background in the few-electron regime. We report a characterization of the delayed electron backgrounds following energy depositions in the LZ detector under different detector conditions. In addition, we quantify the probability for photons to be emitted in coincidence with electron emission from the high voltage grids. We then demonstrate that spontaneous grid electron emission can be identified and rejected with a high efficiency using a coincident photon tag, which provides a tool to improve the sensitivity of future dark matter searches.

Akerib, D. S. [SLAC National Accelerator Laborator↗
DOE OSTI2023

Production and testing of the powerboard for ATLAS ITk Strip barrel modules

The upgrade of the ATLAS ITk strips detector for HL-LHC will employ a custom PCB (powerboard) for on-module DC-DC conversion, HV switching, and monitoring. Production of about 14100 of such PCBs with high reliability is a big challenge. In this paper we will present the production procedure and quality control (QC) testing system for the powerboards to be installed on ITk Strip barrel modules. During production, about 150 powerboards will be produced every week. Each powerboard will need to pass QC tests before they are assembled to module. The QC tests include thermal cycling between -35 °C and 40 °C, soak test (continuous running of DC-DC converter at high load at 20 °C), and basic functionality and characterization electrical tests of the low voltage (LV), high voltage (HV), and monitoring functions of the powerboard. A custom QC test system is described, which is based on a reusable PCB (active board) with all testing circuits, a one-time powerboard carrier card, and a Z-turn SoC board which hosts and runs the testing program. The production procedure and QC test system has been tested with 400 powerboards during pre-production, and the system has been proven ready for production with the desired testing program, speed, safety, and cost. Performance and typical failures of powerboards observed during the QC test of pre-production powerboards is also presented.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Design, construction and commissioning of a technological prototype of a highly granular SiPM-on-tile scintillator-steel hadronic calorimeter

The CALICE collaboration is developing highly granular electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters for detectors at future energy frontier electron-positron colliders. After successful tests of a physics prototype, a technological prototype of the Analog Hadron Calorimeter has been built, based on a design and construction techniques scalable to a collider detector. The prototype consists of a steel absorber structure and active layers of small scintillator tiles that are individually read out by directly coupled SiPMs. Each layer has an active area of 72 × 72 cm^2 and a tile size of 3 × 3 cm^2. With 38 active layers, the prototype has nearly 22,000 readout channels, and its total thickness amounts to 4.4 nuclear interaction lengths. The dedicated readout electronics provide time stamping of each hit with an expected resolution of about 1 ns. The prototype was constructed in 2017 and commissioned in beam tests at DESY. It recorded muons, hadron showers and electron showers at different energies in test beams at CERN in 2018. In this paper, the design of the prototype, its construction and commissioning are described. The methods used to calibrate the detector are detailed, and the performance achieved in terms of uniformity and stability is presented.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

AI-assisted detector design for the EIC (AID(2)E)

Artificial Intelligence is poised to transform the design of complex, large-scale detectors like ePIC at the future Electron Ion Collider. Featuring a central detector with additional detecting systems in the far forward and far backward regions, the ePIC experiment incorporates numerous design parameters and objectives, including performance, physics reach, and cost, constrained by mechanical and geometric limits. This project aims to develop a scalable, distributed AI-assisted detector design for the EIC (AID(2)E), employing state-of-the-art multiobjective optimization to tackle complex designs. Supported by the ePIC software stack and using G EANT 4 simulations, our approach benefits from transparent parameterization and advanced AI features. The workflow leverages the PanDA and iDDS systems, used in major experiments such as ATLAS at CERN LHC, the Rubin Observatory, and sPHENIX at RHIC, to manage the compute intensive demands of ePIC detector simulations. Tailored enhancements to the PanDA system focus on usability, scalability, automation, and monitoring. Ultimately, this project aims to establish a robust design capability, apply a distributed AI-assisted workflow to the ePIC detector, and extend its applications to the design of the second detector (Detector-2) in the EIC, as well as to calibration and alignment tasks. Additionally, we are developing advanced data science tools to efficiently navigate the complex, multidimensional trade-offs identified through this optimization process.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2003

Monte Carlo Simulations of the Response of the MARIE Instrument

The MARIE instrument aboard Mars Odyssey functions as a telescope for the detection of charged, energetic, nuclei. The directionality that leads to the telescope description is achieved by requiring coincident signals in two designated detectors in MARIE s silicon detector stack for the instrument to trigger. Because of this, MARIE is actually a bi directional telescope. Triggering particles can enter the detector stack by passing through the lightly shielded front of the instrument, but can also enter the back of the instrument by passing through the bulk of Odyssey. Because of this, understanding how to relate the signals recorded by MARIE to astrophysically important quantities such as particle fluxes or spectra exterior to the spacecraft clearly requires detailed modeling of the physical interactions that occur as the particles pass through the spacecraft and the instrument itself. In order to facilitate in the calibration of the MARIE data, we have begun a program to simulate the response of MARIE using the FLUKA [1] [2] Monte Carlo radiation transport code.

Andersen, V.↗
NASA NTRS1972

Calibration of the electron-proton spectrometer

The principal function of the sensor used in the electron-proton spectrometer is to provide a signal which can be used to determine the energy and indicate the type of an incident particle. Two techniques are employed to resolve the particle intensity in different energy regions. The first employs a moderator surrounding each detector to provide a nominal lower limit to the energy of a particle which can be detected. The second technique utilizes a pulse height discriminator to identify those particles entering a detector whose energy is (1) sufficiently high that it exceeds the discriminator level if the particle is stopped in the detector, or (2) sufficiently low that the ionization rate causes the discrimination level to be exceeded for paths through the detector shorter than the particle range.

Cash, B. L.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Deep-Learning based Reconstruction of the Shower Maximum $X_{\mathrm{max}}$ using the Water-Cherenkov Detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The atmospheric depth of the air shower maximum X max is an observable commonly used for the determination of the nuclear mass composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. Direct measurements of X max are performed using observations of the longitudinal shower development with fluorescence telescopes. At the same time, several methods have been proposed for an indirect estimation of X max from the characteristics of the shower particles registered with surface detector arrays. In this paper, we present a deep neural network (DNN) for the estimation of X max . The reconstruction relies on the signals induced by shower particles in the ground based water-Cherenkov detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The network architecture features recurrent long short-term memory layers to process the temporal structure of signals and hexagonal convolutions to exploit the symmetry of the surface detector array. We evaluate the performance of the network using air showers simulated with three different hadronic interaction models. Thereafter, we account for long-term detector effects and calibrate the reconstructed X max using fluorescence measurements. Finally, we show that the event-by-event resolution in the reconstruction of the shower maximum improves with increasing shower energy and reaches less than 25 g/cm 2 at energies above 2 × 10 19 eV.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2025

First-ever deployment of a SiPM-on-tile calorimeter in a collider: a parasitic test with 200 GeV p p collisions at RHIC.

We describe the testing of a prototype SiPM-on-tile iron-scintillator calorimeter at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) during its 200 GeV p p run in 2024. The prototype, measuring 20 × 20 cm 2 and 24 radiation lengths in depth, was positioned in the STAR experimental hall, approximately 8 m from the interaction point and 65 cm from the beam line, covering a pseudorapidity range of about 3.1 < η < 3.4. By using the dark current of a reference SiPM as a radiation monitor, we estimate that the prototype was exposed to a fluence of about 10 10 1-MeV n eq /cm 2 . Channel-by-channel calibration was performed in a data-driven way with the signature from minimum-ionizing particles during beam-on conditions. AGeant4 detector simulation, with inputs from thePythia8 event generator, describes measurements of energy spectra and hit multiplicities reasonably well. These results mark the first deployment, commissioning, calibration, and long-term operation of a SiPM-on-tile calorimeter in a collider environment. This experimental campaign will guide detector designs and operational strategies for the ePIC detector at the future EIC, as well as other applications.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2025

Searching for Sterile Neutrinos In the NOvA Experiment and Measurements of Hadronic Energy Response with NOvA Test Beam Data

The NOvA (NuMI Off-Axis electron neutrino Appearance) experiment is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment composed of two functionally identical detectors: a 300-ton Near Detector and a 14-kton Far Detector, separated by 809 km and placed 14 mrad off the axis of the NuMI neutrino beam created at Fermilab. This configuration enables NOvA’s rich neutrino physics program, which includes measuring neutrino mixing parameters, determining the neutrino mass hierarchy, probing CP violation in the leptonic sector, studying neutrino cross sections, searching for sterile neutrinos, and more.\\ In this thesis I will present two independent analyses developed within the NOvA experiment. The first is a search for light sterile neutrino oscillations in the 3+1 framework using $\nu_\mu$-CC and NC samples from the NOvA Near and Far Detectors. Light sterile neutrinos are hypothetical neutral leptons that do not participate in the weak interactions but can mix with the three known active neutrinos: $\nu_e$, $\nu_\mu$, and $\nu_\tau$. Anomalous results, such as $\nu_e$/$\bar{\nu}e$ appearance in a $\nu_\mu$ ($\bar{\nu}_\mu$) beam observed by the MiniBooNE and LSND experiments, can be explained by the existence of sterile neutrinos. Thus, proving the existence of this type of neutrino is essential. The latest results of these searches in the NOvA experiment, along with contributions to this effort, will be presented.\\ The second is the first measurement of the pion energy response using data from the NOvA Test Beam experiment. The NOvA Test Beam experiment, deployed at Fermilab, uses a scaled-down 30-ton NOvA detector to analyze tagged beamline particles. The beamline can select and identify electrons, muons, pions, kaons, and protons with momenta ranging from 0.4 to 1.4 GeV/c. Pions are an important component of the hadronic system in neutrino interactions, and understanding how the detector responds to these particles is crucial for the validation of the simulation and the reduction of detector calibration uncertainties, which remain one of the largest systematic uncertainties in NOvA analyses.

Dueñas Tonguino, David Francisco [Cincinnati U.] (↗
DOE OSTI2024

Search for new particles in events with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson and large missing transverse momentum at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV using the ATLAS detector

A search is presented for new particles produced in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV that result in final states comprising a massive vector ( W or Z ) boson that decays hadronically and large missing transverse momentum. The data sample was collected with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider from 2015 to 2018 and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 140 fb - 1 . No significant excess over the Standard Model expectation is observed. Model-independent 95% confidence-level limits on the visible cross-section that range from 0.3 fb to 79.5 fb are obtained for non-Standard-Model processes. Exclusion limits are also presented for models with axion-like particles, for two-Higgs-doublet models with a pseudo-scalar mediator between the Standard Model and the dark sector, for the invisible decay of the Higgs boson and for pair-produced weakly interacting dark matter candidates.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Single-shot ionization-based monitor for pulsed electron beams

In this work, we present an experimental demonstration of a single-shot, nondestructive electron beam diagnostic based on the ionization of a low-density pulsed gas jet. In our study, 7 MeV electron bunches from a radio-frequency photoinjector, carrying up to 100 pC of charge, traversed a localized distribution of nitrogen gas (N 2 ). The interaction of the electron bunches with the N 2 gas generated a correlated signature in the ionized particle distribution, which was spatially magnified using a series of electrostatic lenses and recorded with a microchannel-plate detector. Various modalities, including point-to-point imaging and velocity mapping, are investigated. A temporal trace of the detector current enabled the identification of single- and double-ionization events. The characteristics of the ionization distribution, dependence on gas density, total bunch charge, and other parameters, are described. Approaches to scaling to higher electron bunch density and energy are suggested. Additionally, the instrument proves useful for comprehensive studies of the ionization process itself.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗