Mapping the material in the LHCb vertex locator using secondary hadronic interactions

Alexander M. Hoole , W. Barter , A. Bay , L.J. Bel , M. van Beuzekom , G. Bogdanova , S. Borghi , T.J.V. Bowcock , E. Buchanan , J. Buytaert , K. Carvalho Akiba , Si Chen , V. Coco , P. Collins , A. Crocombe , F. da Cunha Marinho , E. Dall'Occo , S. de Capua , C.T. Dean , F. Dettori , D. Dossett , K. Dreimanis , G. Dujany (1) , L. Eklund , T. Evans , M. Ferro-Luzzi , M. Gersabeck , T. Gershon , T. Hadavizadeh , J. Harrison , K. Hennessy , W. Hulsbergen , D. Hutchcroft , P. Ilten , E. Jans , M. John , P. Kopciewicz , P. Koppenburg , G. Lafferty , T. Latham , A. Leflat , M.W. Majewski , R. Mcnulty , J. Mylroie-Smith , A. Oblakowska-Mucha , C. Parkes , A. Pearce , A. Poluektov , A. Pritchard , W. Qian , S. Redford , S. Richards , K. Rinnert , E. Rodrigues , G. Sarpis , M. Schiller , H. Schindler , M. Smith , N.A. Smith , T. Szumlak , J.J. Velthuis , V. Volkov , C. Wallace , H.M. Wark , A. Webber , M.R.J. Williams

1 LPNHE (UMR_7585) - Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Énergies

Precise knowledge of the location of the material in the LHCb vertex locator (VELO) is essential to reducing background in searches for long-lived exotic particles, and in identifying jets that originate from beauty and charm quarks. Secondary interactions of hadrons produced in beam-gas collisions are used to map the location of material in the VELO. Using this material map, along with properties of a reconstructed secondary vertex and its constituent tracks, a p-value can be assigned to the hypothesis that the secondary vertex originates from a material interaction. A validation of this procedure is presented using photon conversions to dimuons.

Mots clés: Particle tracking detectors; Performance of High Energy Physics Detectors; vertex: secondary; vertex detector; LHC-B; dimuon: production; measurement methods; track data analysis; p nucleus: scattering; particle identification; statistical analysis

Domaines: Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]; Physique des Hautes Energies - Expérience [hep-ex]

Alexander M. Hoole, W. Barter, A. Bay, L.J. Bel, M. van Beuzekom, et al.. Mapping the material in the LHCb vertex locator using secondary hadronic interactions. JINST, 2018, 13 (06), pp.P06008. ⟨10.1088/1748-0221/13/06/P06008⟩. ⟨hal-01763463⟩