Abstract

The Silicon Vertex Detector (SVD) is the main diagnostic tool in the ALPHA-experiment. It provides precise spatial and timing information of antiproton (antihydrogen) annihilation events (vertices), and most importantly, the SVD is capable of directly identifying and analysing single annihilation events, thereby forming the basis of ALPHA's analysis. This paper describes the ALPHA SVD and its upgrade, installed in the ALPHA's new neutral atom trap.

Highlights

  • The ALPHA experiment is dedicated for studying antihydrogen

  • A variety of reaction by-products follows from the antiproton annihilation, but due to the large amount of material associated with the neutral trap configuration, only the energetic pions emitted within the annihilation process survive through the Silicon Vertex Detector (SVD)

  • The ALPHA SVD has proven its value as the main analysis tool in the experiment, providing spatial and timing information of single antiproton/antihydrogen annihilation events

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Summary

Introduction

The ALPHA experiment is dedicated for studying antihydrogen. ALPHA routinely traps cold antihydrogen in a neutral atom trap [1], achieving trapping times up to 1000 s [2,3]. The ultimate goal of the experiment is to perform precise laser spectroscopy on antihydrogen. A Silicon Vertex Detector (SVD) is placed around the neutral trap of the ALPHA experiment. The vertical and horizontal silicon sensor mechanical alignment accuracy was identified to be 15 and 32 μm respectively, due to the sensor assembly process. Given that the strip width along the horizontal and vertical axes are 875 μm and 227 μm respectively, the corrections are small proportion of the strip width This data will be used to modify reconstruction methods of the detector for greater vertex accuracy. This is not expected to be a major correction and the exact effect on the upgraded detector has not been deduced due to lack of experimental annihilation data

Original and upgraded detector design overview
Construction
Operational environment
Readout
Reconstruction methodology
Summary

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