Hadronic Showers Research Articles

Hadron-ion collisions in Pythia and the vector-meson dominance model for photoproduction

We present an extension to the Pythia Monte Carlo event generator that enables simulations of collisions between a generic hadron beam on a nuclear target with energy variation in event-by-event basis. This builds upon Pythia ’s module for heavy ions, Angantyr, as well as previous work on simulating hadron-proton collisions. As such, the extensions in this work are largely technical, except for a rudimentary model for hadronic fluctuations. With hadron-ion simulations, we implement an explicit vector-meson dominance (VMD) model that can be used to simulate interactions of hadronic component of real photons in photo-nuclear collisions. Such processes can be studied in ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions and in the future also with the upcoming Electron-Ion Collider. Our work also has applications to hadronic showers, e.g. air showers initiated by high-energy cosmic rays. We first validate the VMD model by comparing to HERA photoproduction data on proton target. Then we apply this to generate events for ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions at the LHC and present the results corresponding to the event-selection criteria matching to a recent ATLAS analysis. We find that single-particle multiplicity and rapidity distributions are well in line with the measured ones. We also construct the Fourier coefficients from two-particle correlations for the simulated events and study whether the resulting azimuthal anisotropies are consistent with the ATLAS results.

Particle identification in high-granularity 3D calorimeters for space-borne applications

High granularity 3D calorimeters offer the potential to precisely reconstruct the 3D topology of electromagnetic and hadronic showers originating from isotropic sources. This distinctive capability creates the opportunity for applying reconstruction and analysis methods that could yield additional information compared to those based on the traditional layer-by-layer energy deposit analysis common in particle and astroparticle physics experiments utilizing calorimeters with layer segmentation. In this study, we present a strategy for analyzing the energy deposit in a crystal array calorimeter, utilizing the 3D parametrization of both longitudinal and transversal shapes of showers to implement likelihood tests on single events. While this analysis was developed using the High Energy cosmic Radiation Detector (HERD) calorimeter as a case study, its applicability may extend to any high granularity, homogeneous, isotropic calorimeter employed in particle physics experiments.

Using graph neural networks to reconstruct charged pion showers in the CMS High Granularity Calorimeter

A novel method to reconstruct the energy of hadronic showers in the CMS High Granularity Calorimeter (HGCAL) is presented. The HGCAL is a sampling calorimeter with very fine transverse and longitudinal granularity. The active media are silicon sensors and scintillator tiles readout by SiPMs and the absorbers are a combination of lead and Cu/CuW in the electromagnetic section, and steel in the hadronic section. The shower reconstruction method is based on graph neural networks and it makes use of a dynamic reduction network architecture. It is shown that the algorithm is able to capture and mitigate the main effects that normally hinder the reconstruction of hadronic showers using classical reconstruction methods, by compensating for fluctuations in the multiplicity, energy, and spatial distributions of the shower's constituents. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using test beam data collected in 2018 prototype of the CMS HGCAL accompanied by a section of the CALICE AHCAL prototype. The capability of the method to mitigate the impact of energy leakage from the calorimeter is also demonstrated.

Simulation of a capillary tube, fibre dual-readout calorimeter in DD4hep

Over the past years the dual-readout method for calorimetry, which exploits complementary information from Scintillation and Cherenkov channels, has emerged as candidate to fulfil the requirements for precision physics at future circular lepton colliders. While the dual-readout approach has been tested experimentally quite extensively, this type of calorimeter has never been used in an experiment at a collider. In recent years dedicated studies in simulation have investigated various detector geometries based on a fibre dual-readout calorimeter. One variation of the geometry, relying on capillary tubes, promises easy assembly with excellent geometrical accuracy at a moderate cost. In these proceedings, we present the status and latest results from a full 4π detector geometry simulation in DD4hep. The simulation is used to estimate the performance of a dual-readout calorimeter for single electromagnetic and hadronic particles. The results for the dual-readout technique show an improvement in energy resolution for both electromagnetic and hadronic showers, with respect to single channel measurements.

Exposing a dual-readout fibre calorimeter to electron beams, in preparation for HiDRa: High-resolution calorimeter for [formula omitted] colliders

Among the proposed accelerators for the post-LHC era are the Future Circular Collider (FCC) and the Circular Electron–Positron Collider (CEPC). Both projects would take advantage of the clean environment and low radiation damage of electron–positron collisions, providing the highest precision studies of electroweak and Higgs physics. The relatively high branching fraction of W, Z and Higgs bosons into hadronic jets makes the precise measurements of these objects an essential aspect on detector development for experiments at future collider facilities. One of the most promising calorimetry techniques for improved hadron energy reconstruction is the dual-readout method, which exploits signals from two different physics processes to correct for the fem of hadron showers, therefore boosting the standalone calorimeter performance. The usage of compact photosensors (e.g. Silicon PhotoMultipliers) for the readout enables a very fine segmentation, opening to particle-flow and advanced neural networks software reconstruction of events. In this contribution, the results of testing a small-scale dual-readout calorimeter prototype, characterised by a mixed PMT and SiPM readout solution, with an electron beam at the CERN SPS facility in the energy range [10, 120] GeV are presented. It follows the description of a larger prototype of the same type, currently under construction in the context of the INFN HiDRa project, that will be large enough to fully contain hadron showers. The design, construction technique and expected performance, as estimated through a Geant4 simulation parameterised on the previous prototype, are presented.

New methods and simulations for cosmogenic induced spallation removal in Super-Kamiokande-IV

Radioactivity induced by cosmic muon spallation is a dominant source of backgrounds for O(10 MeV) neutrino interactions in water Cherenkov detectors. In particular, it is crucial to reduce backgrounds to measure the solar neutrino spectrum and find neutrino interactions from distant supernovae. In this paper we introduce new techniques to locate muon-induced hadronic showers and efficiently reject spallation backgrounds. Applying these techniques to the solar neutrino analysis with an exposure of 2790×22.5 kton·day increases the signal efficiency by 12.6%, approximately corresponding to an additional year of detector running. Furthermore, we present the first spallation simulation at Super-Kamiokande, where we model hadronic interactions using . The agreement between the isotope yields and shower pattern in this simulation and in the data gives confidence in the accuracy of this simulation, and thus opens the door to use it to optimize muon spallation removal in new data with gadolinium-enhanced neutron capture detection. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Search for long-lived heavy neutral leptons decaying in the CMS muon detectors in proton-proton collisions at s=13 TeV

A search for heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) decaying in the CMS muon system is presented. A data sample is used corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at s=13 TeV, recorded at the CERN LHC in 2016–2018. Decay products of long-lived HNLs could interact with the shielding materials in the CMS muon system and create hadronic and electromagnetic showers detected in the muon chambers. This distinctive signature provides a unique handle to search for HNLs with masses below 4 GeV and proper decay lengths of the order of meters. The signature is sensitive to HNL couplings to all three generations of leptons. Candidate events are required to contain a prompt electron or muon originating from a vertex on the beam axis and a displaced shower in the muon chambers. No significant deviations from the standard model background expectation are observed. In the electron (muon) channel, the most stringent limits to date are set for HNLs in the mass range of 2.1–3.0 (1.9–3.3) GeV, reaching mixing matrix element squared values as low as 8.6(4.6)×10−6. © 2024 CERN, for the CMS Collaboration 2024 CERN

Prometheus: An open-source neutrino telescope simulation

Neutrino telescopes are gigaton-scale neutrino detectors comprised of individual light-detection units. Though constructed from simple building blocks, they have opened a new window to the Universe and are able to probe center-of-mass energies that are comparable to those of collider experiments. Prometheus is a new, open-source simulation tailored for this kind of detector. Our package, which is written in a combination of C++ and Python provides a balance of ease of use and performance and allows the user to simulate a neutrino telescope with arbitrary geometry deployed in ice or water. Prometheus simulates the neutrino interactions in the volume surrounding the detector, computes the light yield of the hadronic shower and the out-going lepton, propagates the photons in the medium, and records their arrival times and position in user-defined regions. Finally, Prometheus events are serialized into a parquet file, which is a compact and interoperational file format that allows prompt access to the events for further analysis. Program summaryProgram title:PrometheusCPC Library link to program files:https://doi.org/10.17632/svwyd4rd83.1Developer's repository link:https://github.com/Harvard-Neutrino/prometheusLicensing provisions: GNU Lesser General Public License 2.1Programming language:PythonNature of problem: Simulation of neutrino telescopes in ice and water.Solution method: Monte Carlo methods.

Reconstruction of 400 GeV/c proton interactions with the SHiP-charm project

The SHiP-charm project was proposed to measure the associated charm production induced by 400 GeV/c protons in a thick target, including the contribution from cascade production. An optimisation run was performed in July 2018 at CERN SPS using a hybrid setup. The high resolution of nuclear emulsions acting as vertex detector was complemented by electronic detectors for kinematic measurements and muon identification. Here we present first results on the analysis of nuclear emulsions exposed in the 2018 run, which prove the capability of reconstructing proton interaction vertices in a harsh environment, where the signal is largely dominated by secondary particles produced in hadronic and electromagnetic showers within the lead target.

Air showers and hadronic interactions with CORSIKA 8

The CORSIKA 8 project is a collaborative effort aiming to develop a versatile C++ framework for the simulation of extensive air showers, intended to eventually succeed the long-standing FORTRAN version. I present an overview of its current capabilities, focusing on aspects concerning the hadronic and muonic shower components. In particular, I demonstrate the “cascade lineage” feature and its application to quantify the importance of certain phase-space regions in hadronic interactions for muon production. Additionally, I show first results using Pythia 8.3, which as of late is usable as interaction model in cosmic-ray applications and is currently being integrated into CORSIKA 8.

Study of residual artificial neural network for particle identification in the CEPC high-granularity calorimeter prototype

Particle Identification (PID) plays a central role in associating the energy depositions in calorimeter cells with the type of primary particle in a particle flow oriented detector system. In this paper, we propose novel PID methods based on the Residual Network (ResNet) architecture which enable the training of very deep networks, bypass the need to reconstruct feature variables, and ensure the generalization ability among various geometries of detectors, to classify electromagnetic showers and hadronic showers. Using Geant4 simulation samples with energy ranging from 5 GeV to 120 GeV, the efficacy of Residual Connections is validated and the performance of our model is compared with Boosted Decision Trees (BDT) and other pioneering Artificial Neural Network (ANN) approaches. In shower classification, we observe an improvement in background rejection over a wide range of high signal efficiency (> 95%). These findings highlight the prospects of ANN with Residual Blocks for imaging detectors in the PID task of particle physics experiments.

Software compensation for highly granular calorimeters using machine learning

A neural network for software compensation was developed for the highly granular CALICE Analogue Hadronic Calorimeter (AHCAL). The neural network uses spatial and temporal event information from the AHCAL and energy information, which is expected to improve sensitivity to shower development and the neutron fraction of the hadron shower. The neural network method produced a depth-dependent energy weighting and a time-dependent threshold for enhancing energy deposits consistent with the timescale of evaporation neutrons. Additionally, it was observed to learn an energy-weighting indicative of longitudinal leakage correction. In addition, the method produced a linear detector response and outperformed a published control method regarding resolution for every particle energy studied.

Design, construction and commissioning of a technological prototype of a highly granular SiPM-on-tile scintillator-steel hadronic calorimeter

The CALICE collaboration is developing highly granular electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters for detectors at future energy frontier electron-positron colliders. After successful tests of a physics prototype, a technological prototype of the Analog Hadron Calorimeter has been built, based on a design and construction techniques scalable to a collider detector. The prototype consists of a steel absorber structure and active layers of small scintillator tiles that are individually read out by directly coupled SiPMs. Each layer has an active area of 72 × 72 cm^2 and a tile size of 3 × 3 cm^2. With 38 active layers, the prototype has nearly 22,000 readout channels, and its total thickness amounts to 4.4 nuclear interaction lengths. The dedicated readout electronics provide time stamping of each hit with an expected resolution of about 1 ns. The prototype was constructed in 2017 and commissioned in beam tests at DESY. It recorded muons, hadron showers and electron showers at different energies in test beams at CERN in 2018. In this paper, the design of the prototype, its construction and commissioning are described. The methods used to calibrate the detector are detailed, and the performance achieved in terms of uniformity and stability is presented.

Prediction of Electromagnetic Fraction in a Hadronic Shower Using Deep Neural Network

Prediction of Electromagnetic Fraction in a Hadronic Shower Using Deep Neural Network

Performance of the CMS High Granularity Calorimeter prototype to charged pion beams of 20–300 GeV/c

The upgrade of the CMS experiment for the high luminosity operation of the LHC comprises the replacement of the current endcap calorimeter by a high granularity sampling calorimeter (HGCAL). The electromagnetic section of the HGCAL is based on silicon sensors interspersed between lead and copper (or copper tungsten) absorbers. The hadronic section uses layers of stainless steel as an absorbing medium and silicon sensors as an active medium in the regions of high radiation exposure, and scintillator tiles directly read out by silicon photomultipliers in the remaining regions. As part of the development of the detector and its readout electronic components, a section of a silicon-based HGCAL prototype detector along with a section of the CALICE AHCAL prototype was exposed to muons, electrons and charged pions in beam test experiments at the H2 beamline at the CERN SPS in October 2018. The AHCAL uses the same technology as foreseen for the HGCAL but with much finer longitudinal segmentation. The performance of the calorimeters in terms of energy response and resolution, longitudinal and transverse shower profiles is studied using negatively charged pions, and is compared to GEANT4 predictions. This is the first report summarizing results of hadronic showers measured by the HGCAL prototype using beam test data.

Search for Ultra-high-energy Photons from Gravitational Wave Sources with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A search for time-directional coincidences of ultra-high-energy (UHE) photons above 10 EeV with gravitational wave (GW) events from the LIGO/Virgo runs O1 to O3 is conducted with the Pierre Auger Observatory. Due to the distinctive properties of photon interactions and to the background expected from hadronic showers, a subset of the most interesting GW events is selected based on their localization quality and distance. Time periods of 1000 s around and 1 day after the GW events are analyzed. No coincidences are observed. Upper limits on the UHE photon fluence from a GW event are derived that are typically at ∼7 MeV cm−2 (time period 1000 s) and ∼35 MeV cm−2 (time period 1 day). Due to the proximity of the binary neutron star merger GW170817, the energy of the source transferred into UHE photons above 40 EeV is constrained to be less than 20% of its total GW energy. These are the first limits on UHE photons from GW sources.

Performance comparison of water Cherenkov detectors with different geometries

In the framework of the development of the SWGO experiment, we have performed a detailed study of the single unit of an extensive air shower observatory based on an array of water Cherenkov detectors. Indeed, one of the possible water Cherenkov detector unit configurations for SWGO consists of tanks, and to reach a high detection efficiency and discrimination capability between gamma-ray and hadronic air showers, different tank designs are under investigation. In this study, we consider and compare double-layer tanks with several sizes, shapes and number of photo-multiplier tubes (PMTs). Muons, electrons, and gamma-rays with energies typical of secondary particles in extensive air showers have been simulated entering the tanks with zenith angles from 0 to 60 deg. The comparison between different tank geometries was evaluated considering the number of photoelectrons produced by the PMTs, the detection efficiency, and the time resolution of the measurement of the first photon. We will show that with circular and hexagonal tanks better performance can be obtained than with the square ones, and that it improves for smaller tanks as expected.

Greisen function and its ability to describe air-shower profiles

Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays are almost exclusively detected through extensive air showers, which they initiate upon interaction with the atmosphere. The longitudinal development of these air showers can be directly observed using fluorescence detector telescopes, such as those employed at the Pierre Auger Observatory or the Telescope Array. In this article, we discuss the properties of the Greisen function, which was initially derived as an approximate solution to the electromagnetic cascade equations, and its ability to describe the longitudinal shower profiles. We demonstrate that the Greisen function can be used to describe longitudinal air-shower profiles, even for hadronic air showers. Furthermore, we discuss the possibility to discriminate between hadrons and photons from the shape of air-shower profiles using the Greisen function.

Discriminate primary gammas (signal) from the images of hadronic showers by cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere (background) with machine learning

The grid search approach was used in this article to tune the hyperparameters of the Light Gradient Boosting Machine, Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, Extra Tree, Ada Boost, and Linear Discriminant Analysis algorithms for Gamma and Hadron classification. The findings of ROC and Precision-Recall curves were also discussed to assess the performance of algorithms in the Gamma and Hadron classification. with the light gradient boosting machine, it took 33 s to get an AUC value of 0.94 for the Gamma and Hardon classification. Also, the results of the Random Forest, the light gradient boosting machine, and the Linear Discriminant Analysis were all about the same.

Description and stability of a RPC-based calorimeter in electromagnetic and hadronic shower environments

The CALICE Semi-Digital Hadron Calorimeter technological prototype completed in 2011 is a sampling calorimeter using Glass Resistive Plate Chamber (GRPC) detectors as the active medium. This technology is one of the two options proposed for the hadron calorimeter of the International Large Detector for the International Linear Collider. The prototype was exposed in 2015 to beams of muons, electrons, and pions of different energies at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron. The use of this technology for future experiments requires a reliable simulation of its response that can predict its performance. GEANT4 combined with a digitization algorithm was used to simulate the prototype. It describes the full path of the signal: showering, gas avalanches, charge induction, and hit triggering. The simulation was tuned using muon tracks and electromagnetic showers for accounting for detector inhomogeneity and tested on hadronic showers collected in the test beam. This publication describes developments of the digitization algorithm. It is used to predict the stability of the detector performance against various changes in the data-taking conditions, including temperature, pressure, magnetic field, GRPC width variations, and gas mixture variations. These predictions are confronted with test beam data and provide an attempt to explain the detector properties. The data-taking conditions such as temperature and potential detector inhomogeneities affect energy density measurements but have small impact on detector efficiency.