Speaker
Description
The ALICE Collaboration has proposed a completely new apparatus, ALICE 3, for LHC Run 5. ALICE 3 will be an all-silicon, ultra-low-mass detector capable of tracking over a large pseudo-rapidity range with excellent pointing resolution, particle identification, and high-speed capabilities, based on the state-of-the-art technologies and innovative detection approaches. This design will give access to an ultra-soft region of phase space, allowing the measurement of very low transverse momentum lepton pairs, photons, and hadrons, enabling novel studies of the quark–gluon plasma as well as other key questions in QCD and beyond.
The apparatus is centered on a large, ultra-low-mass, all-silicon tracker consisting of pixel-based layers arranged to achieve the best possible impact parameter resolution for decay vertex reconstruction. The vertex detector is designed to be integrated into a retractable structure inside the beam pipe, and cutting-edge technologies are being developed to achieve a track-point resolution better than 10 microns for particles with transverse momentum above 200 MeV/c. Particle identification over a broad momentum range is provided by a Time-Of-Flight (TOF) detector in combination with an aerogel-based Ring-Imaging CHerenkov detector (RICH) covering barrel and end-cap regions, as well as a dedicated Muon IDentifier (MID). The compact design of the experiment imposes stringent requirements on the TOF system, including a time resolution of 20 ps, which exceeds the capabilities of current state-of-the-art silicon-based technologies. Additionally RICH detector faces challenges related to the radiation tolerance of the silicon sensors and noise mitigation through innovative techniques. The ambitious R&D effort required to meet these stringent technological demands is not only crucial for ALICE 3 but will also drive innovation in silicon detector technologies with broad applicability in future applications and experiments in High-Energy Physics and beyond.
This contribution will present a comprehensive overview of the future ALICE 3 apparatus, focusing on the innovative detector concept and on the ongoing R&D efforts: key results and future directions in the development of the main technologies under investigation will be outlined.
| Position | Post-Doc researcher |
|---|---|
| Affiliation | University and INFN of Bologna |
| Country | Italy |