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NEXT Collaboration(Alvarez, V. et al), Carcel, S., Cervera-Villanueva, A., Diaz, J., Ferrario, P., Gil, A., et al. (2013). Operation and first results of the NEXT-DEMO prototype using a silicon photomultiplier tracking array. J. Instrum., 8, P09011–20pp.
Abstract: NEXT-DEMO is a high-pressure xenon gas TPC which acts as a technological test-bed and demonstrator for the NEXT-100 neutrinoless double beta decay experiment. In its current configuration the apparatus fully implements the NEXT-100 design concept. This is an asymmetric TPC, with an energy plane made of photomultipliers and a tracking plane made of silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) coated with TPB. The detector in this new configuration has been used to reconstruct the characteristic signature of electrons in dense gas, demonstrating the ability to identify the MIP and “blob” regions. Moreover, the SiPM tracking plane allows for the definition of a large fiducial region in which an excellent energy resolution of 1.82% FWHM at 511 keV has been measured (a value which extrapolates to 0.83% at the xenon Q(beta beta)).
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fassi, F., Ferrer, A., et al. (2013). Triggers for displaced decays of long-lived neutral particles in the ATLAS detector. J. Instrum., 8, P07015–35pp.
Abstract: A set of three dedicated triggers designed to detect long-lived neutral particles decaying throughout the ATLAS detector to a pair of hadronic jets is described. The efficiencies of the triggers for selecting displaced decays as a function of the decay position are presented for simulated events. The effect of pile-up interactions on the trigger efficiencies and the dependence of the trigger rate on instantaneous luminosity during the 2012 data-taking period at the LHC are discussed.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fassi, F., Ferrer, A., et al. (2013). Characterisation and mitigation of beam-induced backgrounds observed in the ATLAS detector during the 2011 proton-proton run. J. Instrum., 8, P07004–72pp.
Abstract: This paper presents a summary of beam-induced backgrounds observed in the ATLAS detector and discusses methods to tag and remove background contaminated events in data. Trigger-rate based monitoring of beam-related backgrounds is presented. The correlations of backgrounds with machine conditions, such as residual pressure in the beam-pipe, are discussed. Results from dedicated beam-background simulations are shown, and their qualitative agreement with data is evaluated. Data taken during the passage of unpaired, i.e. non-colliding, proton bunches is used to obtain background-enriched data samples. These are used to identify characteristic features of beam-induced backgrounds, which then are exploited to develop dedicated background tagging tools. These tools, based on observables in the Pixel detector, the muon spectrometer and the calorimeters, are described in detail and their efficiencies are evaluated. Finally an example of an application of these techniques to a monojet analysis is given, which demonstrates the importance of such event cleaning techniques for some new physics searches.
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Aplin, S., Boronat, M., Dannheim, D., Duarte, J., Gaede, F., Ruiz-Jimeno, A., et al. (2013). Forward tracking at the next e(+)e(-) collider part II: experimental challenges and detector design. J. Instrum., 8, T06001–26pp.
Abstract: We present the second in a series of studies into the forward tracking system for a future linear e(+)e(-) collider with a center-of-mass energy in the range from 250 GeV to 3 TeV. In this note a number of specific challenges are investigated, which have caused a degradation of the tracking and vertexing performance in the forward region in previous experiments. We perform a quantitative analysis of the dependence of the tracking performance on detector design parameters and identify several ways to mitigate the performance loss for charged particles emitted at shallow angle.
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Solevi, P. et al, Oliver, J. F., Gillam, J. E., & Rafecas, M. (2013). A Monte-Carlo based model of the AX-PET demonstrator and its experimental validation. Phys. Med. Biol., 58(16), 5495–5510.
Abstract: AX-PET is a novel PET detector based on axially oriented crystals and orthogonal wavelength shifter (WLS) strips, both individually read out by silicon photo-multipliers. Its design decouples sensitivity and spatial resolution, by reducing the parallax error due to the layered arrangement of the crystals. Additionally the granularity of AX-PET enhances the capability to track photons within the detector yielding a large fraction of inter-crystal scatter events. These events, if properly processed, can be included in the reconstruction stage further increasing the sensitivity. Its unique features require dedicated Monte-Carlo simulations, enabling the development of the device, interpreting data and allowing the development of reconstruction codes. At the same time the non-conventional design of AX-PET poses several challenges to the simulation and modeling tasks, mostly related to the light transport and distribution within the crystals and WLS strips, as well as the electronics readout. In this work we present a hybrid simulation tool based on an analytical model and a Monte-Carlo based description of the AX-PET demonstrator. It was extensively validated against experimental data, providing excellent agreement.
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