Commissioning the ATLAS Silicon Microstrip Tracker

J.E Garcia

doi:10.1016/j.nuclphysbps.2009.10.075

Abstract

The completed SemiConductor Tracker (SCT) has been installed inside ATLAS. Tests were performed last year to verify the connectivity of the electrical and optical services. Problems observed with the heaters for the evaporative cooling system have been resolved. This has enabled extended operation of the full detector under realistic conditions. Calibration data has been taken and analyzed to determine the noise performance of the system. In addition, extensive commissioning with cosmic ray events has started. The cosmic muon data has been used to align the detector, to check the timing of the front-end electronics as well as to check hit efficiency of modules. The current status of the SCT will be reviewed.

Highlights

ATLAS is a multi-purpose particle detector installed at the CERN Large Hadron Collider to exploit the physics of proton−proton collisions with 14 TeV center of mass energy and luminosity of 1034 cm−2 s−1 [1]
The Semiconductor Tracker (SCT) was installed in the ATLAS cavern, tested and officially signed-off early in 2008
The SCT has successfully been integrated with the ATLAS data acquisition (DAQ) system and joined the combined Milestone runs during 2008

Summary

INTRODUCTION

ATLAS is a multi-purpose particle detector installed at the CERN Large Hadron Collider to exploit the physics of proton−proton collisions with 14 TeV center of mass energy and luminosity of 1034 cm−2 s−1 [1]. The inner detector (ID) is a high performance tracker, prepared for the LHC very severe conditions. A most detailed description of the inner detector of ATLAS can be found in [2]. The inner detector is dedicated to track charged particles from the collisions. The ID combines high spatial resolution in the inner part: silicon pixels and micro-strip detectors; with continuous detection, transition radiation detection, in the external part. These subsystems are enclosed inside a solenoidal magnet with a 2 Tesla magnetic field, used for charged particles momentum measurement. Inner detector covers up to |η| ≤ 2.5. Starting from the most internal, the sub-systems that compose ID are: Pixels detector, Semiconductor Tracker (SCT) and Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT)

SEMICONDUCTOR TRACKER

SCT COMMISSIONING

CONCLUSION