TY - JOUR AU - LHCb Collaboration (Aaij, R. et al AU - Jaimes Elles, S. J. AU - Jashal, B. K. AU - Martinez-Vidal, F. AU - Oyanguren, A. AU - Rebollo De Miguel, M. AU - Sanderswood, I. AU - Zhuo, J. PY - 2024 DA - 2024// TI - Helium identification with LHCb T2 - J. Instrum. JO - Journal of Instrumentation SP - P02010 - 23pp VL - 19 IS - 2 PB - IOP Publishing Ltd KW - dE/dx detectors KW - Ion identification systems KW - Large detector systems for particle and astroparticle physics KW - Particle identification methods AB - The identification of helium nuclei at LHCb is achieved using a method based on measurements of ionisation losses in the silicon sensors and timing measurements in the Outer Tracker drift tubes. The background from photon conversions is reduced using the RICH detectors and an isolation requirement. The method is developed using pp collision data at root s = 13 TeV recorded by the LHCb experiment in the years 2016 to 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.5 fb(-1). A total of around 10(5) helium and antihelium candidates are identified with negligible background contamination. The helium identification efficiency is estimated to be approximately 50% with a corresponding background rejection rate of up to O(10(12)). These results demonstrate the feasibility of a rich programme of measurements of QCD and astrophysics interest involving light nuclei. SN - 1748-0221 UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.05864 UR - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-0221/19/02/P02010 DO - 10.1088/1748-0221/19/02/P02010 LA - English N1 - WOS:001185791500006 ID - LHCbCollaborationAaij_etal2024 ER -