Hadron Collider Research Articles

Alexei Alekseevich Abrikosov. 25 June 1928—29 March 2017

A. A. Abrikosov was a consummate theoretical physicist whose work permeates modern quantum many-body physics. His greatest impact is the explanation of a regime of superconductivity in large magnetic fields, where the field penetrates the superconductor in quantized vortices, but the superconducting properties persist. For this work he won the 2003 Nobel Prize (together with V. L. Ginzburg ForMemRS and A. J. Leggett FRS). This is the framework for practical uses of superconductivity for high-field magnets, used for example in magnetic resonance imaging, magnetically levitating trains and the Large Hadron Collider. The ‘Abrikosov lattice’ of quantized vortices is a precursor to more recent understandings of two-dimensional magnetism, and topological materials whose properties are defined by quantized currents. He provided the earliest understanding of resummation of singularities in quantum theories, co-authored a textbook that has trained generations of theorists and led major research institutes and programmes in the USSR and the USA.

Linear power corrections to top quark pair production in hadron collisions

We compute, in the framework of renormalon calculus, the OΛQCD\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{O}\\left({\\Lambda}_{\ extrm{QCD}}\\right) $$\\end{document} corrections to the production of tt¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ t\\overline{t} $$\\end{document} pairs in hadron collisions under the assumption that qq¯→tt¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ q\\overline{q}\ o t\\overline{t} $$\\end{document} is the dominant partonic channel. This assumption is not applicable to top quark pair production at the LHC but it is valid for the Tevatron where collisions of protons and anti-protons were studied. We show that the linear power correction to the total tt¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ t\\overline{t} $$\\end{document} production cross section vanishes provided one uses a short-distance scheme for the top quark mass. We also derive relatively simple formulas for the power corrections to top quark kinematic distributions. Although small numerically, these power corrections exhibit interesting dependencies on top quark kinematics.

Towards a Timepix3 Radiation Monitor for the Accelerator Mixed Radiation Field: Characterisation with Protons and Alphas from 0.6 MeV to 5.6 MeV

A Timepix3 detector with a 300 μm silicon sensor has been studied as a novel radiation monitor for the mixed radiation field at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. This work describes a test campaign carried out at Centro Nacional de Aceleradores with quasi-mono energetic protons (alphas) from 0.6 (1) to 5 (5.6) MeV, where orthogonal irradiations are used to obtain an energy calibration, and a low-energy angular scan to estimate the front dead layer thickness of the sensor. The detector is operated in hole collection mode and at a partial bias of 250 μm at 50 V, which increases the charge sharing among pixels to mitigate the signal saturation at high energy depositions. The data, supported by FLUKA Monte Carlo simulations of energy losses in the sensor, show that the Timepix3 monitor operates in a linear regime up to energy depositions of around 600 keV per pixel and 2 MeV per cluster. As a result, the detector has been found to be suitable for measuring charged particle fluxes in the LHC mixed radiation field within the linear calibration regime, with the partial exception of inelastic nuclear reaction hits (mostly from neutrons).

Charmed meson pair production in high‐energy pp$$ pp $$ collisions within the QCD color dipole approach

AbstractA study of double‐charmed meson production in high‐energy proton–proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider is presented. Considering the color dipole formalism developed in the transverse momentum representation along with the double parton scattering mechanism, predictions are made for the transverse momentum differential cross section for different pairs of ‐mesons. The theoretical results cover the center‐of‐mass energy and forward rapidities available by the LHCb experiment. The proton–proton results considering different unintegrated gluon distributions are compared to the respective data collected at the LHC.

Characterizing nuclear modification effects in high-energy O-O collisions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider: A transport model perspective

Characterizing nuclear modification effects in high-energy O-O collisions at energies available at the CERN Large Hadron Collider: A transport model perspective

Testing complex singlet scalar cosmology at the Large Hadron Collider

The Standard Model extended with a complex singlet scalar (cxSM) can admit a strong first order electroweak phase transition (SFOEWPT) as needed for electroweak baryogenesis and provide a dark matter (DM) candidate. The presence of both a DM candidate and a singlet-like scalar that mixes with the Standard Model Higgs boson leads to the possibility of a bb¯\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ b\\overline{b} $$\\end{document} + MET final state in pp collisions. Focusing on this channel, we analyze the prospective reach at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for a heavy singlet-like scalar in regions of cxSM parameter space compatible with a SFOEWPT and DM phenomenology. We identify this parameter space while implementing current constraints from electroweak precision observable and Higgs boson property measurements as well as those implied by LHC heavy resonance searches. Implementing a proposed search strategy, we find that the heavy scalar and DM candidate can be probed up to 1 TeV and 450 GeV at 2σ level respectively.

Isolating semi-leptonic H→WW∗\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$H\\rightarrow WW^{*}$$\\end{document}decays for Bell inequality tests

We present a method for identifying H→WW∗→ℓνjj\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$H\\rightarrow WW^* \\rightarrow \\ell \ u j j$$\\end{document} events in the presence of large Standard Model backgrounds and illustrate how this decay mode may be applied to the study of Bell-type Inequalities. Our findings reveal the feasibility of complete reconstruction of such Higgs decays and the efficacy of our suggested combination of selection criteria in effectively mitigating the otherwise overwhelming backgrounds. Our approach is based on a combination of bottom and charm tagging, alongside innovative reconstruction techniques. A realistic simulation based on publicly available object identification, reconstruction, and tagging efficiencies from the ATLAS experiment is used to explore the potential sensitivity to violations of the Collins-Gisin-Linden-Massar-Popescu (CGLMP) inequality in existing and expected future data collected at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is found that, the proposed method provides a powerful means of distinguishing the Higgs decay mode from the background, allowing us to achieve an expectation of approximately 3σ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\sigma $$\\end{document} significance in detecting violations of these inequalities with 300 fb-1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\hbox {fb}^{-1}$$\\end{document} of data, soon-to-be collected by the LHC.

Impact of beam–beam effects on absolute luminosity calibrations at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), absolute luminosity calibrations obtained by the van der Meer (vdM) method are affected by the mutual electromagnetic interaction of the two beams. The colliding bunches experience relative orbit shifts, as well as optical distortions akin to the dynamic-β\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\beta $$\\end{document} effect, that both depend on the transverse beam separation and must therefore be corrected for when deriving the absolute luminosity scale. In the vdM regime, the beam–beam parameter is small enough that the orbit shift can be calculated analytically. The dynamic-β\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\beta $$\\end{document} corrections to the luminometer calibrations, however, had until the end of Run 2 been estimated in the linear approximation only. In this report, the influence of beam–beam effects on the vdM-based luminosity scale is quantified, together with the associated systematic uncertainties, by means of simulations that fully take into account the non-linearity of the beam–beam force, as well as the resulting non-Gaussian distortions of the transverse beam distributions. Two independent multiparticle simulations, one limited to the weak-strong approximation and one that models strong-strong effects in a self-consistent manner, are found in excellent agreement; both predict a percent-level shift of the absolute pp-luminosity values with respect to those assumed until recently in the physics publications of the LHC experiments. These results also provide guidance regarding further studies aimed at reducing the beam–beam-related systematic uncertainty on beam–beam corrections to absolute luminosity calibrations by the van der Meer method.

Nuclear modification factor for quarkonium production in high energy proton‐nucleus collisions within the parton saturation approach

AbstractIn this work, we analyze nuclear effects in the inclusive production of quarkonium in proton‐nucleus collisions at high energy regime. A theoretical framework that includes initial state effects like nuclear shadowing and gluon density saturation is considered. Numerical results for nuclear modification factor, , as a function of meson rapidity in proton‐nucleus collisions are presented. The parameter‐free predictions are compared to the available data from the Large Hadron Collider. Discussion on the main theoretical uncertainties is made, with emphasis on the phenomenological models for the nuclear saturation scale.

A Flexible and Efficient Approach to Missing Transverse Momentum Reconstruction

Missing transverse momentum is a crucial observable for physics at hadron colliders, being the only constraint on the kinematics of “invisible” objects such as neutrinos and hypothetical dark matter particles. Computing missing transverse momentum at the highest possible precision, particularly in experiments at the energy frontier, can be a challenging procedure due to ambiguities in the distribution of energy and momentum between many reconstructed particle candidates. This paper describes a novel solution for efficiently encoding information required for the computation of missing transverse momentum given arbitrary selection criteria for the constituent reconstructed objects. Pileup suppression using information from both the calorimeter and the inner detector is an integral component of the reconstruction procedure. Energy calibration and systematic variations are naturally supported. Following this strategy, the ATLAS Collaboration has been able to optimise the use of missing transverse momentum in diverse analyses throughout Runs 2 and 3 of the Large Hadron Collider and for future analyses.

Dilepton production in proton-proton reaction at 4.5 GeV with the HADES spectrometer

Spectra of dileptons emitted in hadron collisions are important tool to study electromagnetic decays of resonances and the validity of the Vector Meson Dominance model. Furthermore, they provide reference spectra for the hot and dense (heavy-ion A+A collisions) and cold nuclear matter (p+A collisions). In February 2022, proton-proton reactions at 4.5 GeV beam kinetic energy were measured by HADES experiment. The aim of the analysis is to study the specific channels that produced dileptons, such as baryonic resonance Dalitz decays (Δ/N* → Ne+e−) and vector meson decays (ρ/ω/φ→ e+e−). In addition, the investigations of dielectron production above the φ meson mass will be enabled. In this contribution, different steps of the e+e− pair reconstruc tion are discussed.

Radiation environment in the Large Hadron Collider during the 2022 restart and related RHA implications

Radiation environment in the Large Hadron Collider during the 2022 restart and related RHA implications

Beam-Beam Long Range Compensator Mechanical Demonstrator

Beam-Beam Long-Range Compensators employing current-carrying wires are considered as valuable options in hadron colliders to increase dynamic aperture at small crossing angles. This paper presents a simple design proposal for application at CERN LHC. The preliminary design allows for a certain scalability of the number of modules, current flowing in the wire, and dimensions. It complies with two key requirements: (a) the use of a thin, bare metal wire that allows for movement as near to the beam as necessary while minimizing interactions with beam particles and meeting the specified DC current target; and (b) a wire support that is both an electrical insulator and a thermal conductor (ceramic). A molybdenum wire, vacuum brazed on an aluminium nitride support, is proposed, and the design is conceptually proved through the realization and extensive test of a demonstrator device. The wire brazing validation, as well as the system’s heat management, which are the most critical aspects, are given particular regard.

Thermal and supply voltage analysis of optimized ring oscillator for pixel detector readout chip

This paper provides a specific study of the upgrade of the ATLAS pixel detector in preparation for the upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The upgrade to High Luminosity-LHC (HL-LHC) is expected to start after the long shutdown in 2025-2027. The scheduled upgrade for ATLAS will be able to efficiently cope with the challenges caused by the high luminosity imposed by the HL-LHC. A new full-silicon Detector Inner Tracker (ITk) will replace the current ATLAS Inner Detector (ID). The ITk pixel detector will consist of more layers than in the current pixel detector. This study focuses on the Ring Oscillator (ROSC) sensors embedded in the ITkPix-V1 Front-End chip of the ATLAS ITk pixel detector. The paper reports the frequency response of the ROSC at various temperatures and voltage supply values. The results showed a high sensitivity of ROSCs frequencies to the applied voltage and the external temperatures which indicates the reliability of the ITkPix-V1 chip for the future ITk pixel modules.

The Global Network Advancement Group A Next Generation System for the LHC Program and Data Intensive Sciences

This paper presents the rapid progress, vision and outlook across multiple state of the art development lines within the Global Network Advancement Group (GNA-G) and its Data Intensive Sciences and SENSE/AutoGOLE working groups, which are designed to meet the present and future needs and address the challenges of the Large Hadron Collider and other science programs with global reach. Since it was founded in the Fall of 2019 and the working groups were formed in 2020, in partnership with ESnet, Internet2, CENIC, GEANT, ANA, RNP, StarLight, NRP, N-DISE, AmLight, and many other leading research and education networks and network R&D projects, as well as Caltech, UCSD/SDSC, Fermilab, CERN, LBL, and many other leading universities and laboratories, the GNA-G working groups have deployed two virtual circuit and programmable testbeds spanning six continents which supports continuous developments aimed at the next generation of programmable networks interworking with the science programs’ computing and data management systems. The talk covers examples of recent progress in developing and deploying new methods and approaches in multidomain virtual circuits, flow steering, path selection, load balancing and congestion avoidance, segment routing and machine learning based traffic prediction and optimization.

Strange hadron production in small system using the STAR Detector

Strangeness enhancement has long been considered a signature of quark-gluon plasma formation in heavy-ion collisions. Recently, strangeness enhancement has also been observed in small systems at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), but the underlying physics is not yet fully understood. This motivates us to study of strange hadron production in small system at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). In this proceedings, we present new measurements of strange hadrons (KS0, Λ(¯Λ)) in d+Au collisions at √SNN = 200 GeV, collected by the STAR experiment in 2016. We will report pT spectra, dN/dy, <pT>, nuclear modification factor and YAsym of these particles in d+Au collisions.

Commissioning of the ALICE readout software for LHC Run 3

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is a heavy-ion detector studying the physics of strongly interacting matter and the quarkgluon plasma at the CERN LHC (Large Hadron Collider). During the second long shut-down of the LHC, the ALICE detector was upgraded to cope with an interaction rate of 50 kHz in Pb-Pb collisions, producing in the online computing system (O2) a sustained input throughput of 3.5 TB/s. In the past years, the O2/FLP project built the new data-acquisition system capable of handling this load. It consists of 200 readout nodes, collecting the data transferred from over 8000 detector links to PCs memory by dedicated PCI boards. The readout software manages the hardware and software memory buffers used for DMA and inter-process communication. It initiates the data flow, performs on-the-fly consistency checks, formats the data, reports performance, and finally pushes the data to the local processing pipeline. The output is then sent by the data distribution software over 100Gb/s links to a dedicated event processing farm. The readout software modular design allowed to address the manifold needs faced during the prototyping, installation and commissioning phases, which proved essential from the lab tests to physics production, like file replay and recording, or online multi-threaded LZ4 compression. We will describe the hardware and software implementation of the O2 readout system, and review the challenges met during the commissioning and first months of operation with LHC collisions in 2022.

Accelerating Dynamic Aperture Evaluation Using Deep Neural Networks

The Dynamic Aperture is an important concept for the study of non-linear beam dynamics in a circular accelerator. The DA is defined as the extent of the phase-space region in which the particle’s motion remains bounded over a finite number of turns. Such a region is shaped by the imperfections in the magnetic fields, beam-beam effects, electron lens, electron clouds, and other non-linear effects. The study of the DA provides insight into the mechanisms driving the time evolution of beam losses, which is essential for the operation of existing circular accelerators, such as the CERN Large Hadron Collider, as well as for the design of future ones. The standard approach to numerical evaluation of the DA relies on the ability to accurately track initial conditions, distributed in phase space, on a realistic time scale, and this is computationally demanding. To accelerate the angular DA calculation, we propose the use of a Machine Learning technique for the angular DA regression based on simulated HL-LHC data. We demonstrate the implementation of a Deep Neural Network model by measuring the time and assessing the performance of the angular DA regressor, as well as carrying out studies with various hardware architectures including CPU, GPU, and TPU.

Optimizing Pb beam losses at the LHCb for maximum luminosity

In addition to the physics program with proton beams, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN also provides collisions of fully-stripped Pb beams for about one month per year. When colliding Pb nuclei, electromagnetic interactions are the dominating processes because of the intense Coulomb field produced by the ions. These ’ultra-peripheral’ interactions give rise to ions with a changed magnetic rigidity. This causes losses in the machine that can impose limits on the luminosity. Among them, the bound-free pair production (BFPP) causes a localised power deposition downstream of each collision point, which could induce superconducting magnet quenches if not well controlled. These losses were studied and successfully mitigated for most LHC experiments, however the recent request by LHCb to increase the Pb-Pb luminosity requires a revision of BFPP collisional loss limitations. In this paper, the simulation of BFPP losses from Pb-Pb collisions around LHCb is presented. The loss patterns are discussed for different beam parameters. Finally, a mitigation strategy by means of an orbit bump is studied.

The CMS monitoring applications for LHC Run 3

Data taking at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN restarted in 2022. The CMS experiment relies on a distributed computing infrastructure based on WLCG (Worldwide LHC Computing Grid) to support the LHC Run 3 physics program. The CMS computing infrastructure is highly heterogeneous and relies on a set of centrally provided services, such as distributed workload management and data management, and computing resources hosted at almost 150 sites worldwide. Smooth data taking and processing requires all computing subsystems to be fully operational, and available computing and storage resources need to be continuously monitored. During the long shutdown between LHC Run 2 and Run 3, the CMS monitoring infrastructure has undergone major changes to increase the coverage of monitored applications and services, while becoming more sustainable and easier to operate and maintain. The used technologies are based on open-source solutions, either provided by the CERN IT department through the MONIT infrastructure, or managed by the CMS monitoring team. Monitoring applications for distributed workload management, submission infrastructure based on HTCondor, distributed data management, facilities have been ported from mostly custom-built applications to use common data flow and visualization services. Data are mostly stored in non-SQL databases and storage technologies such as ElasticSearch, VictoriaMetrics, Prometheus, InfluxDB and HDFS, and accessed either via programmatic APIs, Apache Spark or Sqoop jobs, or visualized preferentially using Grafana. Most CMS monitoring applications are deployed on Kubernetes clusters to minimize maintenance operations. In this contribution we present the full stack of CMS monitoring services and show how we leveraged the use of common technologies to cover a variety of monitoring applications and cope with the computing challenges of LHC Run 3.