On the Usage of Precision Timing Detectors in High Rate and High Pileup Environments

Abstract

High energy particle collider experiments are facing ever more challenging conditions, operating at todays accelerators capable of providing instantaneous luminosities of \(10^{34} cm^{-2}s^{-1}\) and above. The high center of mass energy, the large number of simultaneous collision of beam particles in the experiments and the very high repetition rates of the collision events pose huge challenges. They result in extremely high particle fluxes, causing very high occupancies in the particle physics detectors operating at these machines. A precise timing information with a precision of around 10 ps and below is seen as a major aid in the reconstruction of the physics events under such challenging conditions. In this paper I discuss applications of precision timing in high pile-up conditions and review the efforts of the LHC collaborations to augment the timing performance of their detectors during future upgrade campaigns. Different detector technologies allowing precision timing measurements will be discussed and their potential benefit for a holistic event reconstruction will be illustrated.