Speaker
Description
The ALICE Collaboration has proposed a major upgrade for the HL-LHC era, termed ALICE 3, which requires a new Muon Identification (MID) system to effectively identify low-energy muons ($p_{\text{T}}>1.5~\text{GeV}/c$) amidst significant hadronic background. Primary candidate technologies for this subsystem are scintillators with SiPM readout coupled to WLS fibres, and lightweight Multi-wire proportional chambers (MWPCs) as a gaseous detector option. To determine the optimal detector configuration and absorber thickness, test beam measurements were conducted at the CERN T10 facility in 2024 and 2025. Experiences gathered are relevant to MPGD-type detectors as well in future developments.
The test measurements utilized muon- and pion-enriched beams directed through an iron absorber with variable lengths. To evaluate the detector response and optimize the experimental design, a comprehensive Geant4 simulation framework of the setup was developed. These simulations were fine-tuned against the experimental data and a custom tracking algorithm was implemented. A tagging method was developed to determine the signal ratio for hadron suppression.
The experimental data showed satisfactory agreement with the Geant4 simulations. Analysis yielded a highly pure experimental muon beam with efficinecy of $(99.7\pm0.1)\%$, while the systematic comparison of hadron suppression between the measured data and simulations successfully quantified a $(1.5\pm0.5)\%$ muon contamination in the pion beam. Hadron suppression values were determined as a function of the absorber length, and the values were compared to independent measurement and analysis results on scintillator detectors. The possibility of using a machine learning-based algorithm for improvement on hadron suppression results is being explored. The results of this research will guide us in designing an efficient, cost-effective layout for the ALICE 3 muon tracking system. Furthermore, the practical solutions to tune detector response simulation to be matching with that of the experimental data is highly relevant for all types of gaseous detectors including MPGDs.
| Name of the speaker | Dániel Száraz |
|---|---|
| Eligible for the Georges Charpak Young Scientist Award. | yes |