Performance of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter during the LHC Run II

Abstract

Many physics analyses using the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector at the LHC require accurate, high resolution electron and photon energy measurements. In particular, excellent energy resolution is crucial for studies of Higgs boson decays with electromagnetic particles in the final state, as well as searches for very high mass resonances decaying to energetic photons or electrons. Following the excellent performance achieved in Run I at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL) is operating at the LHC with proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV center-of-mass energy. The instantaneous luminosity delivered by the LHC during Run II has achieved unprecedented values, using 25 ns bunch spacing. High pileup levels necessitate a retuning of the ECAL readout and trigger thresholds and reconstruction algorithms, to achieve the best possible performance in these more challenging conditions. The energy response of the detector must be precisely calibrated and monitored to reach and maintain the excellent performance obtained in Run I in terms of energy scale and resolution. A dedicated calibration of each detector channel is performed with physics events exploiting electrons from W and Z boson decays, photons from π0/η decays, and from the azimuthally symmetric energy distribution of minimum bias events. This talk presents the new reconstruction algorithm and calibration strategies that were implemented to maintain the excellent performance of the CMS ECAL throughout Run II. Performance results from the Run II data taking period will be reported.