T. Rovelli

DELPHI data collected at centre-of-mass energies up to 208 GeV have been analysed to search for charginos, neutralinos and sfermions in the framework of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) with R-parity conservation. No evidence for a signal was found in any of the channels. The results of each search were used to derive limits on production cross-sections and particle masses. In addition, the combined result of all searches excludes regions in the parameter space of the constrained MSSM, leading to limits on the mass of the Lightest Supersymmetric Particle and other supersymmetric particles.

A new general purpose fixed target facility is proposed at the CERN SPS accelerator which is aimed at exploring the domain of hidden particles and make measurements with tau neutrinos. Hidden particles are predicted by a large number of models beyond the Standard Model. The high intensity of the SPS 400~GeV beam allows probing a wide variety of models containing light long-lived exotic particles with masses below ${\cal O}$(10)~GeV/c$^2$, including very weakly interacting low-energy SUSY states. The experimental programme of the proposed facility is capable of being extended in the future, e.g. to include direct searches for Dark Matter and Lepton Flavour Violation.

This document summarizes the work of the Accelerator Working Group (AWG) of the International Scoping Study (ISS) of a Future Neutrino Factory and Superbeam Facility. The main goal of the activity was to reach consensus on a baseline design for a Neutrino Factory complex, including proton driver parameters, choice of target, front-end design, acceleration system design, and decay ring geometry. Another goal was to explore the commonality, if any, between the proton driver for a Neutrino Factory and those for a Superbeam or Beta Beam facility. In general, the requirements for either of the latter facilities are less stringent than those for a Neutrino Factory. Here, we discuss concepts, parameters, and expected performance of the required subsystems for our chosen baseline design of a Neutrino Factory. We also give an indication of the main R&D tasks — many of which are already under way — that must be carried out to finalize facility design approaches.

Systems featuring hard-core--soft-shell repulsive pair potentials can form ordered phases, where particles organize themselves in aggregates with nontrivial geometries. The dimer crystal formed by one such potential, namely, the hard-core plus generalized exponential model of order 4, has been recently investigated, revealing a low-temperature structural phase transition, with the onset of nematic ordering of the dimers. In the present work, we aim to characterize this phase transition via a mean-field theory, by which a detailed analysis of the low-temperature properties of the system is carried out under quadrupole approximation. We determine the transition temperature and identify its order parameter, highlighting the link between the structural transition and the nematic ordering of the system. The first-order character of the transition is established and supported by the Landau expansion of the free energy in powers of the order parameter. The theory is subsequently generalized to take into account lattice vibrations and dimer length fluctuations. Finally, we provide an explanation for the anomalous behavior displayed by the specific heat in the vanishing-temperature limit, which is also supported by Monte Carlo simulations.

Abstract We discuss an experiment to investigate neutrino physics at the LHC, with emphasis on tau flavour. As described in our previous paper Beni et al (2019 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 46 115008), the detector can be installed in the decommissioned TI18 tunnel, ≈480 m downstream the ATLAS cavern, after the first bending dipoles of the LHC arc. The detector intercepts the intense neutrino flux, generated by the LHC beams colliding in IP1, at large pseudorapidity η , where neutrino energies can exceed a TeV. This paper focuses on exploring the neutrino pseudorapity versus energy phase space available in TI18 in order to optimize the detector location and acceptance for neutrinos originating at the pp interaction point, in contrast to neutrinos from pion and kaon decays. The studies are based on the comparison of simulated pp collisions at <?CDATA $\sqrt{s}=$?> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"> <mml:msqrt> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>s</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:msqrt> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> </mml:math> 13 TeV: PYTHIA events of heavy quark (c and b) production, compared to DPMJET minimum bias events (including charm) with produced particles traced through realistic LHC optics with FLUKA. Our studies favour a configuration where the detector is positioned off the beam axis, slightly above the ideal prolongation of the LHC beam from the straight section, covering 7.4 &lt; η &lt; 9.2. In this configuration, the flux at high energies (0.5–1.5 TeV and beyond) is found to be dominated by neutrinos originating directly from IP1, mostly from charm decays, of which ≈50% are electron neutrinos and ≈5% are tau neutrinos. The contribution of pion and kaon decays to the muon neutrino flux is found small at those high energies. With 150 fb −1 of delivered LHC luminosity in Run 3 the experiment can record a few thousand very high energy neutrino charged current (CC) interactions and over 50 tau neutrino CC events. These events provide useful information in view of a high statistics experiment at HL–LHC. The electron and muon neutrino samples can extend the knowledge of the charm PDF to a new region of x , which is dominated by theory uncertainties. The tau neutrino sample can provide first experience on reconstruction of tau neutrino events in a very boosted regime.

The 40 MHz bunched muon beam set up at CERN was used in May 2003 to make a full test of the drift tubes local muon trigger. The main goal of the test was to prove that the integration of the various devices located on a muon chamber was adequately done both on the hardware and software side of the system. Furthermore the test provided complete information about the general performance of the trigger algorithms in terms of efficiency and noise. Data were collected with the default configuration of the trigger devices and with several alternative configurations at various angles of incidence of the beam. Tests on noise suppression and di-muon trigger capability were performed.

The Target Normal Sheath Acceleration regime for proton acceleration by laser pulses is experimentally consolidated and fairly well understood. However, uncertainties remain in the analysis of particle-in-cell simulation results. The energy spectrum is exponential with a cut-off, but the maximum energy depends on the simulation time, following different laws in two and three dimensional (2D, 3D) PIC simulations so that the determination of an asymptotic value has some arbitrariness. We propose two empirical laws for the rise time of the cut-off energy in 2D and 3D PIC simulations, suggested by a model in which the proton acceleration is due to a surface charge distribution on the target rear side. The kinetic energy of the protons that we obtain follows two distinct laws, which appear to be nicely satisfied by PIC simulations, for a model target given by a uniform foil plus a contaminant layer that is hydrogen-rich. The laws depend on two parameters: the scaling time, at which the energy starts to rise, and the asymptotic cut-off energy. The values of the cut-off energy, obtained by fitting 2D and 3D simulations for the same target and laser pulse configuration, are comparable. This suggests that parametric scans can be performed with 2D simulations since 3D ones are computationally very expensive, delegating their role only to a correspondence check. In this paper, the simulations are carried out with the PIC code ALaDyn by changing the target thickness L and the incidence angle α, with a fixed a0 = 3. A monotonic dependence, on L for normal incidence and on α for fixed L, is found, as in the experimental results for high temporal contrast pulses.

A prototype of the CMS Barrel Muon Detector incorporating all the features of the final chambers was built using the mass production assembly procedures and tools. The performance of this prototype was studied in a muon test beam at CERN and the results obtained are presented in this paper.

In October 2001 the first produced CMS Barrel Drift Tube (DT) Muon Chamber was tested at the CERN Gamma Irradiation Facility (GIF) using a muon beam. A Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) was attached to the top of the DT chamber, and, for the first time, both detectors were operated coupled together. The performance of the DT chamber was studied for several operating conditions, and for gamma rates similar to the ones expected at LHC. In this paper we present the data analysis; the results are considered fully satisfactory.

We studied the light collection in plastic scintillator strips, optimized for the detection of Minimum Ionizing Particles (MIPs). The light is collected by Wave Length Shifter (WLS) fibers and detected by Silicon Photo Multipliers (SiPMs). The study is based on prototypes developed for the muon detector of SuperB experiment. In parallel to measurement made on various type of geometries, a complete simulation suite, based on FLUKA, was developed. The simulation parameters were tuned by comparison with real data. In this way, we were able to study the effects of geometries and assembling procedures on light collection and provide a useful simulation tool for the design of future prototypes.

Two drift tubes (DTs) chambers of the CMS muon barrel system were exposed to a 40 MHz bunched muon beam at the CERN SPS, and for the first time the whole CMS Level-1 DTs-based trigger system chain was tested. Data at different energies and inclination angles of the incident muon beam were collected, as well as data with and without an iron absorber placed between the two chambers, to simulate the electromagnetic shower development in CMS. Special data-taking runs were dedicated to test for the first time the Track Finder system, which reconstructs track trigger candidates by performing a proper matching of the muon segments delivered by the two chambers. The present paper describes the results of these measurements.

Today’s greatest challenge in accelerator-based neutrino physics is to measure the mixing angle θ13 which is known to be much smaller than the solar mixing angle θ12 and the atmospheric mixing angle θ23. A non-zero value of the angle θ13 is a prerequisite for observing CP violation in neutrino mixing. In this paper, we discuss a deep-sea neutrino experiment with 1.5 Mt fiducial target mass in the Gulf of Taranto with the prime objective of measuring θ13. The detector is exposed to the CERN neutrino beam to Gran Sasso in off-axis geometry. Monochromatic muon neutrinos of ≈ 800 MeV energy are the dominant beam component. Neutrinos are detected through quasi-elastic, charged-current reactions in sea water; electrons and muons are detected in a large-surface, ring-imaging Cherenkov detector. The profile of the seabed in the Gulf of Taranto allows for a moveable experiment at variable distances from CERN, starting at 1100 km. From the oscillatory pattern of the disappearance of muon neutrinos, the experiment will measure sin2θ23 and especially Δm2 23 with high precision. The appearance of electron neutrinos will be observed with a sensitivity to P(νμ→νe) as small as 0.0035 (90% CL) and sin2θ13 as small as 0.0019 (90% CL; for a CP phase angle δ=0° and for normal neutrino mass hierarchy).

Abstract The light yield, the time resolution and the efficiency of different types of scintillating tiles with direct Silicon Photomultiplier readout and instrumented with a customised front-end electronics have been measured at the Beam Test Facility of Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati and several test stands. The results obtained on minimum ionising particles with different detector configurations are presented. A time resolution of the order of 300 ps, a light yield of more than 230 photo-electrons, and an efficiency better than 99.8% are obtained with ∼ 225 cm 2 large area tiles. This technology is suitable for a wide range of applications in high-energy physics, in particular for large area muon and timing detectors.

Abstract The barrel muon chambers of the CMS detector consist of three sets of four layers of rectangular drift tubes. The performance of several prototypes was measured in a muon beam for various experimental conditions. Special emphasis was given to study performance aspects related to the trigger capability of the chambers.

The drift tubes based CMS barrel muon trigger, which uses self-triggering arrays of drift tubes, is able to perform the identification of the muon parent bunch crossing using a rather sophisticated algorithm. The identification is unique only if the trigger chain is correctly synchronized. Some beam test time was devoted to take data useful to investigate the synchronization of the trigger electronics with the machine clock. Possible alternatives were verified and the dependence on muon track properties was studied.

An underwater neutrino experiment has been proposed which provides precise measurements of the neutrino mixing parameters θ23 and Δm232 and permits an increase of sensitivity for the small angle θ13 by more than one order of magnitude. A Cherenkov detector of about 1.5 Mt active mass, deployed in the Gulf of Taranto, utilizes the CNGS beam in off-axis configuration which represents an essentially mono-energetic source of muon neutrinos. A unique feature of the experiment is the possibility to move the detector and therefore exploit different baselines around 1200 km where the oscillation pattern is fully developed. The conceptual detector design consists of O(30,000) large area and acceptance photosensors arranged in a matrix of ∼300×300 m2 size. Hybrid photon detectors are considered as promising candidates as they provide clean signal characteristics and uniform collection efficiency. We discuss the design and expected performance of a large spherical HPD with 380 mm diameter, which is housed in a high-pressure glass container. A scaled prototype HPD of 208 mm diameter is currently under development using the existing CERN HPD facility.

The barrel region of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider is instrumented with Drift Tube (DT) detectors. This paper describes in full details the calibration of the DT hit reconstruction algorithm. After inter-channel synchronization has been verified through the appropriate hardware procedure, the time pedestals are extracted directly from the distribution of the recorded times. Further corrections for time-of-flight and time of signal propagation are applied as soon as the three-dimensional hit position within the DT chamber is known. The different effects of the time pedestal miscalibration on the two main hit reconstruction algorithms are shown. The drift velocity calibration algorithm is based on the meantimer technique. Different meantimer relations for different track angles and patterns of hit cells are used. This algorithm can also be used to determine the uncertainty on the reconstructed hit position.

XSEN (Cross Section of Energetic Neutrinos) is a small experiment designed to study, for the first time, neutrino-nucleon interactions (including the tau flavour) in the 0.5-1 TeV neutrino energy range. The detector will be installed in the decommissioned TI18 tunnel and uses nuclear emulsions. Its simplicity allows construction and installation before the LHC Run 3, 2021-2023; with 150/fb in Run3, the experiment can record up to two thousand neutrino interactions, and up to a hundred tau neutrino events. The XSEN detector intercepts the intense neutrino flux, generated by the LHC beams colliding in IP1, at large pseudo-rapidities, where neutrino energies can exceed the TeV. Since the neutrino-N interaction cross section grows almost linearly with energy, the detector can be light and still collect a considerable sample of neutrino interactions. In our proposal, the detector weighs less than 3 tons. It is lying slightly above the ideal prolongation of the LHC beam from the straight section; this configuration, off the beam axis, although very close to it, enhances the contribution of neutrinos from c and b decays, and consequently of tau neutrinos. The detector fits in the TI18 tunnel without modifications. We plan for a demonstrator experiment in 2021 with a small detector of about 0.5 tons; with 25/fb, nearly a hundred interactions of neutrinos of about 1 TeV can be recorded. The aim of this pilot run is a good in-situ characterisation of the machine-generated backgrounds, an experimental verification of the systematic uncertainties and efficiencies, and a tuning of the emulsion analysis infrastructure and efficiency. This Letter provides an overview of the experiment motivations, location, design constraints, technology choice, and operation.

The drift chambers in the barrel region of the CMS detector are exposed to magnetic stray fields. To study the performance of the muon reconstruction and the drift time-based muon trigger, prototypes were tested under the expected magnetic field conditions at the H2 test facility at CERN. The results indicate that the overall chamber performance will not be affected. Only the bunch crossing identification capability in the small region near η=1.1, corresponding to the border of the solid angle region covered by the barrel, will be weakened.

Data taken by DELPHI during the 1995 and 1996 LEP runs have been used to search for the supersymmetric partners of electron, muon and tau leptons and of top and bottom quarks. The observations are in agreement with standard model predictions. Limits are set on sfermion masses. Searches for long lived scalar leptons from low scale supersymmetry breaking models exclude stau masses below 55 GeV/c2 at the 95% confidence level, irrespective of the gravitino mass.

Abstract The slow controls of the DELPHI detector enable a single operator to oversee the proper functioning of the apparatus and to diagnose faults as they occur. The hardware and software of this system, as well as their interface to the experiment and the operator, are described. Finally, we attempt to draw some conclusions from seven years' design work and the initial four years' operation of DELPHI.

Abstract The development of the barrel drift chambers for the CMS muon detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider is supported by a variety of simulation calculations, based on the GARFIELD drift chamber simulation program and the GEANT detector simulation package. This study surveys the results influencing the actual chamber design. The dependence of the drift cell performance on shape and position of the cell electrodes as well as on the mechanical tolerances is shown. The results obtained for space-time relation and spatial resolution are in good agreement to test beam measurements on prototypes.

The CMS muon barrel drift tubes system has been recently fully installed and commissioned in the experiment. The performance and the current status of the detector are briefly presented and discussed.

Abstract The overall architecture of a lead-glass electromagnetic calorimeter with high granularity and a cathode pad readout is described; the dedicated electronics, the data-taking system and the preliminary results obtained with a CERN-PS test beam are presented.

We propose a new beam-dump experiment, SHADOWS, to search for a large variety of feebly-interacting particles possibly produced in the interactions of a 400 GeV proton beam with a high-Z material dump. SHADOWS will use the 400 GeV primary proton beam extracted from the CERN SPS currently serving the NA62 experiment in the CERN North area and will take data off-axis when the P42 beam line is operated in beam-dump mode. SHADOWS can accumulate up to a ~2 x10^19 protons on target per year and expand the exploration for a large variety of FIPs well beyond the state-of-the-art in the mass range of MeV-GeV in a parameter space that is allowed by cosmological and astrophysical observations. So far the strongest bounds on the interaction strength of new feebly-interacting light particles with Standard Model particles exist up to the kaon mass; above this threshold the bounds weaken significantly. SHADOWS can do an important step into this still poorly explored territory and has the potential to discover them if they have a mass between the kaon and the beauty mass. If no signal is found, SHADOWS will push the limits on their couplings with SM particles between one and four orders of magnitude in the same mass range, depending on the model and scenario.

Conclusions: We have developed a method to correct for scintillator quenching in a large detection volume with sufficient accuracy for dosimetric purposes. This method employs an empirical model and requires prior knowledge of the three-dimensional LET distribution of the beam and the material-dependent quenching factors for the scintillator. This quenching correction method will be employed in future studies using liquid scintillators to obtain three-dimensional dosimetric information from proton pencil beams.

GEANT 4 and FLUKA are two well-established Montecarlo (MC) simulation codes used in high energy and medical physics fields. The main goals of this work are to optimize the design of a novel Cerenkov detector for radiotherapy applications and to compare the output of the two MC codes. The detector is based on a lead glass instead of a conventional scintillator, the Cerenkov photons generated by the secondary electrons with an energy greater than Cerenkov threshold inside the lead glass are collected by an inclined paraboloidal mirror and then focused on an off axis CMOS detector. The dimensions of the proposed Cerenkov detector are quite compact and, thus, we recon that it can be placed below the LINAC multi-leaf collimator. This will allow the online verification of IMRT treatments. A first preliminary step involved the optimization of the geometry of the paraboloidal mirror with respect to the position of the CMOS detector and lead glass. In order to do that a parallel beam of optical photons coming from the lead glass were simulated and their focusing on the CMOS was optimized. The spectrum of the photons delivered by a clinical LINAC (Varian Clinac 2100) was included in both GEANT4 and FLUKA. A radiation beam containing 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">4</sup> photons was simulated and the resulting beam shape derived from the two MC codes was compared. For GEANT4 and FLUKA the modelling of the electromagnetic interactions was made respectively using the EM Standard class and EMF command, to request a detailed electrons, positrons and photons transport. The same electromagnetic processes and the same energy cuts was considered in the simulation setup. Both MC allows the simulation of the transport and boundary effects for optical photons generated by Cerenkov photons in the lead glass. The paraboloidal mirror was simulated as a spike reflector with a reflectivity fixed to 95% and the CMOS active surface was set as dielectric-metal interface with an efficiency of 0.85.

The DELPHI Data Acquisition and Control System uses the Error and Message handling Utility (EMU) as a standard distributed system which deals with messages generated by the controlling and monitoring processes. A tool which allows one to look at EMU messages as they are produced and to retrieve past messages is described. This utility, being based on a configuration file, can be used both by the central and individual detector operators. Versions exist with both MOTIF (X-windows) and MHI (“VT100”) user interfaces.

XSEN (Cross Section of Energetic Neutrinos) is a small experiment designed to study, for the first time, neutrino-nucleon interactions (including the tau flavour) in the 0.5-1 TeV neutrino energy range. The detector will be installed in the decommissioned TI18 tunnel and uses nuclear emulsions. Its simplicity allows construction and installation before the LHC Run 3, 2021-2023; with 150/fb in Run3, the experiment can record up to two thousand neutrino interactions, and up to a hundred tau neutrino events. The XSEN detector intercepts the intense neutrino flux, generated by the LHC beams colliding in IP1, at large pseudo-rapidities, where neutrino energies can exceed the TeV. Since the neutrino-N interaction cross section grows almost linearly with energy, the detector can be light and still collect a considerable sample of neutrino interactions. In our proposal, the detector weighs less than 3 tons. It is lying slightly above the ideal prolongation of the LHC beam from the straight section; this configuration, off the beam axis, although very close to it, enhances the contribution of neutrinos from c and b decays, and consequently of tau neutrinos. The detector fits in the TI18 tunnel without modifications. We plan for a demonstrator experiment in 2021 with a small detector of about 0.5 tons; with 25/fb, nearly a hundred interactions of neutrinos of about 1 TeV can be recorded. The aim of this pilot run is a good in-situ characterisation of the machine-generated backgrounds, an experimental verification of the systematic uncertainties and efficiencies, and a tuning of the emulsion analysis infrastructure and efficiency. This Letter provides an overview of the experiment motivations, location, design constraints, technology choice, and operation.

A large system of wire proportional chambers is being constructed for the readout of the High-Density Projection Chamber of the DELPHI experiment at the Large Electron-Positron (LEP) storage ring. The system consists of 144 chambers, each 0.3-m/sup 2/, and read out via cathode pads. located at the end of the HPC drift volume. The authors discuss the design of the readout chamber; the chamber construction, the mechanical tolerances and gain uniformity, and the performance.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

A didactic project is being developed using multimedia techniques at the Physics Department of the University of Bologna to help both students and teachers. The ISHTAR WWW server comprises several courses on different chapters of physics and a set of tools for helping with the didactical activities. The level of the courses is adapted for students in their last years at high school and in their first years at university, and it is especially designed for students of the life sciences.

A detailed simulation of a drift tube for barrel muon chambers of the CMS experiment at LHC has been performed. Drift parameters and the effects of a magnetic field on a drift tube have been studied.

The World Wide Web originated within the high-energy physics community from the need to exchange documentation in an efficient way. It can be used easily to produce and maintain didactic material for teaching physics. The material can be made accessible via the network in hypertext form, comprising text, pictures, animations, audio files. For didactic applications in physics, the capability of an interactive link, beyond the use of simple electronic forms is necessary. This was not foreseen in the original WWW protocol, and it has been developed in an application presented here to simulate a series of measurements in a diffusion process in solutions. The recent introduction of the Java language offers a natural way to create new powerful interactive Internet applications. We are currently developing and testing Java powered didactic applications.

The general architecture of the HPC second-level trigger is described, and an implementation based on digital sums of the drifted charge is discussed. The tests of a Camac prototype are reported.