Study of Track Reconstruction for DAMPE

Abstract

The Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) is aimed to study the existence and distribution of dark matter via the observation of high-energy particles in space with a large energy bandwidth, high energy resolution, and high spatial resolution. The track reconstruction is to restore the positions and angles of the incident particles using the multiple observations of different channels at different positions, and its accuracy determines the angular resolution of the explorer. The track reconstruction is mainly based on the observations of two sub-detectors, namely, the Silicon Tracker (STK) and the BGO (Bi4Ge3O12) calorimeter. In accordance with the design and structure of the two sub-detectors, and using the data collected during the beam tests and ground tests of cosmic rays, we discuss in detail the method of track reconstruction for the DAMPE, which includes mainly three basic procedures: the selection of track hits, the fitting of track hits, and the judgement of the optimal track. Since an energetic particle most probably leaves multiple hits in different layers of the STK and BGO crystals, we first provide a method to obtain a rough track in the BGO calorimeter by the centroid method, and hereby to constrain the track hits in the STK. Then for the selected one group of possible track hits in the STK, we apply two different algorithms, the Kalman filter and the least square linear fitting, to fit these track hits. The consistency of the results obtained independently via the two algorithms confirms the validity of our track reconstruction results. Finally, several criteria for picking out the most possible track among all the tracks found in the reconstruction by combining the results of the BGO calorimeter and STK are discussed. Using the track reconstruction method proposed in this article and the beam test data, we confirm that the angular resolution of the DAMPE satisfies its design requirement.