The CMS detector, including its muon system, has been operating at the CERN LHC in increasingly challenging conditions for about 15 years. The muon detector was designed to provide excellent triggering and track reconstruction for muons produced in proton–proton collisons at an instantaneous luminosity ( ℒ ) of 1 × 10^34 cm ^-2 s ^-1 . During the Run 2 data-taking period (2015–2018), the LHC achieved an instantaneous luminosity of twice its design value, resulting in larger background rates and making the efficient detection of muons more difficult. While some backgrounds result from natural radioactivity, cosmic rays, and interactions of the circulating protons with residual gas in the beam pipe, the dominant source of background hits in the muon system arises from proton–proton interactions themselves. Charged hadrons leaving the calorimeters produce energy deposits in the muon chambers. In addition, high-energy particles interacting in the hadron calorimeter and forward shielding elements generate thermal neutrons, which leak out of the calorimeter and shielding structures, filling the CMS cavern. We describe the method used to measure the background rates in the various muon subsystems. These rates, in conjunction with simulations, can be used to estimate the expected backgrounds in the High-Luminosity LHC. This machine will run for at least 10 years starting in 2029 reaching an instantaneous luminosity of ℒ = 5 ×10^34 cm^-2 s^-1 and increasing ultimately to ℒ = 7.5 ×10^34 cm^-2 s^-1 . These background estimates have been a key ingredient for the planning and design of the muon detector upgrade.

AbstractThe CMS detector, including its muon system, has been operating at the CERN LHC in increasingly challenging conditions for about 15 years. The muon detector was designed to provide excellent triggering and track reconstruction for muons produced in proton–proton collisons at an instantaneous luminosity ($$\mathcal {L}$$ L ) of $$1 \times 10^{34}$$ 1 × 10 34 cm$$^{-2}$$ - 2 s$$^{-1}$$ - 1 . During the Run 2 data-taking period (2015–2018), the LHC achieved an instantaneous luminosity of twice its design value, resulting in larger background rates and making the efficient detection of muons more difficult. While some backgrounds result from natural radioactivity, cosmic rays, and interactions of the circulating protons with residual gas in the beam pipe, the dominant source of background hits in the muon system arises from proton–proton interactions themselves. Charged hadrons leaving the calorimeters produce energy deposits in the muon chambers. In addition, high-energy particles interacting in the hadron calorimeter and forward shielding elements generate thermal neutrons, which leak out of the calorimeter and shielding structures, filling the CMS cavern. We describe the method used to measure the background rates in the various muon subsystems. These rates, in conjunction with simulations, can be used to estimate the expected backgrounds in the High-Luminosity LHC. This machine will run for at least 10 years starting in 2029 reaching an instantaneous luminosity of $$\mathcal {L} = 5 \times \text {10}^\text {34}\,\text {cm}^\text {-2}\,\text {s}^\text {-1}$$ L = 5 × 10 34 cm -2 s -1 and increasing ultimately to $$\mathcal {L} = 7.5 \times \text {10}^\text {34}\,\text {cm}^\text {-2}\,\text {s}^\text {-1}$$ L = 7.5 × 10 34 cm -2 s -1 . These background estimates have been a key ingredient for the planning and design of the muon detector upgrade.

Spontaneous self-sustained currents on the cathodes of multiwire proportional chambers pose a problem for detectors in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider with prolonged exposure to radiation. The nature of spontaneous currents is studied using samples of a chamber cathode on which such currents occurred. A set of atomic force microscopy procedures for detecting and studying point emission centers is developed.

Abstract The CMS detector, including its muon system, has been operating at the CERN LHC in increasingly challenging conditions for about 15 years. The muon detector was designed to provide excellent triggering and track reconstruction for muons produced in proton–proton collisons at an instantaneous luminosity ( $$\mathcal {L}$$ L ) of $$1 \times 10^{34}$$ 1 × 10 34 cm $$^{-2}$$ - 2 s $$^{-1}$$ - 1 . During the Run 2 data-taking period (2015–2018), the LHC achieved an instantaneous luminosity of twice its design value, resulting in larger background rates and making the efficient detection of muons more difficult. While some backgrounds result from natural radioactivity, cosmic rays, and interactions of the circulating protons with residual gas in the beam pipe, the dominant source of background hits in the muon system arises from proton–proton interactions themselves. Charged hadrons leaving the calorimeters produce energy deposits in the muon chambers. In addition, high-energy particles interacting in the hadron calorimeter and forward shielding elements generate thermal neutrons, which leak out of the calorimeter and shielding structures, filling the CMS cavern. We describe the method used to measure the background rates in the various muon subsystems. These rates, in conjunction with simulations, can be used to estimate the expected backgrounds in the High-Luminosity LHC. This machine will run for at least 10 years starting in 2029 reaching an instantaneous luminosity of $$\mathcal {L} = 5 \times \text {10}^\text {34}\,\text {cm}^\text {-2}\,\text {s}^\text {-1}$$ L = 5 × 10 34 cm -2 s -1 and increasing ultimately to $$\mathcal {L} = 7.5 \times \text {10}^\text {34}\,\text {cm}^\text {-2}\,\text {s}^\text {-1}$$ L = 7.5 × 10 34 cm -2 s -1 . These background estimates have been a key ingredient for the planning and design of the muon detector upgrade.

The mechanism of occurrence of spontaneous self-sustained currents in a multiwire proportional chamber from the experiment at the Large Hadron Collider has been considered. Atomic force microscopy, Rutherford backscattering, and Raman spectroscopy on the copper foil of the chamber cathode revealed the formation of nanocarbon structures and their fluorinated compounds, which are well known as low-threshold sources of field emission of electrons.

A comprehensive study is performed of the cathode of a multiwire proportional chamber subjected to prolonged irradiation in an experiment at the LHC. The structural-phase state of the copper foil on the cathode is analyzed via nuclear scanning microscopy, atomic scanning microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray phase analysis. Nanostructural formations of carbon are found in the zone of spontaneous electron emission on the electrode.

The Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP) Collaboration has proposed a general-purpose experimental facility operating in beam-dump mode at the CERN SPS accelerator to search for light, feebly interacting particles. The SHiP experiment incorporates two complementary detectors. The upstream detector is designed for recoil signatures of light dark matter (LDM) scattering and for neutrino physics, in particular with tau neutrinos. It consists of a spectrometer magnet housing a layered detector system with high-density LDM/neutrino target plates, emulsion-film technology and electronic high-precision tracking. The downstream detector system aims at measuring visible decays of feebly interacting particles to both fully reconstructed final states and to partially reconstructed final states with neutrinos, in a nearly background-free environment. The detector consists of a 50\m long decay volume under vacuum followed by a spectrometer and particle identification system with a rectangular acceptance of 5\,m in width and 10\,m in height. Using the high-intensity beam of 400\gev protons, the experiment aims at profiting from the $4\times 10^{19}$ protons per year that are currently unexploited at the SPS, over a period of 5--10 years. This allows probing dark photons, dark scalars and pseudo-scalars, and heavy neutral leptons with GeV-scale masses at sensitivities that largely exceed those of existing and projected experiments. The sensitivity to light dark matter reaches well below the dark matter relic density limits in the range from a few \mevcc up to 100\,MeV-scale masses, and it will be possible to study tau neutrino interactions with unprecedented statistics. This paper describes the SHiP experiment baseline setup and the detector systems, together with performance results from prototypes in test beams, as it was prepared for the 2020 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics.

PANDA (anti-Proton ANnihiliation at DArmstadt) is planned to be one of the four main experiments at the future international accelerator complex FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) in Darmstadt, Germany. It is going to address fundamental questions of hadron physics and quantum chromodynamics using cooled antiproton beams with a high intensity and and momenta between 1.5 and 15 GeV/c. PANDA is designed to reach a maximum luminosity of 2x10^32 cm^2 s. Most of the physics programs require an excellent particle identification (PID). The PID of hadronic states at the forward endcap of the target spectrometer will be done by a fast and compact Cherenkov detector that uses the detection of internally reflected Cherenkov light (DIRC) principle. It is designed to cover the polar angle range from 5{\deg} to 22{\deg} and to provide a separation power for the separation of charged pions and kaons up to 3 standard deviations (s.d.) for particle momenta up to 4 GeV/c in order to cover the important particle phase space. This document describes the technical design and the expected performance of the novel PANDA Disc DIRC detector that has not been used in any other high energy physics experiment (HEP) before. The performance has been studied with Monte-Carlo simulations and various beam tests at DESY and CERN. The final design meets all PANDA requirements and guarantees suffcient safety margins.

Using a data sample of $$\sqrt{s}=13\,\text {TeV}$$ proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2017 and 2018 with an integrated luminosity of $$103\text {~fb}^{-1}$$ , the $$\text {B}^{0}_{\mathrm{s}} \rightarrow \uppsi (\text {2S})\text {K}_\mathrm{S}^{0}$$ and $$\text {B}^{0} \rightarrow \uppsi (\text {2S})\text {K}_\mathrm{S}^{0} \uppi ^+\uppi ^-$$ decays are observed with significances exceeding 5 standard deviations. The resulting branching fraction ratios, measured for the first time, correspond to $${\mathcal {B}}(\text {B}^{0}_{\mathrm{s}} \rightarrow \uppsi (\text {2S})K_\mathrm{S}^{0})/{\mathcal {B}}(\text {B}^{0}\rightarrow \uppsi (\text {2S})K_\mathrm{S}^{0}) = (3.33 \pm 0.69 (\text {stat})\, \pm 0.11\,(\text {syst}) \pm 0.34\,(f_{\mathrm{s}}/f_{\mathrm{d}})) \times 10^{-2}$$ and $${\mathcal {B}}(\text {B}^{0} \rightarrow \uppsi (\text {2S})\text {K}_\mathrm{S}^{0} \uppi ^{+} \uppi ^{-})/ {\mathcal {B}}(\text {B}^{0} \rightarrow \uppsi (\text {2S})\text {K}^{0}_{\mathrm{S}}) = 0.480 \pm 0.013\,(\text {stat}) \pm 0.032\,(\text {syst})$$ , where the last uncertainty in the first ratio is related to the uncertainty in the ratio of production cross sections of $$\hbox {B}^{0}_{\mathrm{s}}$$ and $$\hbox {B}^{0}$$ mesons, $$f_{\mathrm{s}}/f_{\mathrm{d}}$$ .

The B$^0_s$ and B$^+$ production yields are measured in PbPb collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.02 TeV. The data sample, collected with the CMS detector at the LHC, corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.7 nb$^{-1}$. The mesons are reconstructed in the exclusive decay channels B$^0_s$ $\to$ J/$\psi(\mu^+\mu^-)\phi($K$^+$K$^-)$ and B$^+$ $\to$ J/$\psi(\mu^+\mu^-)$K$^+$, in the transverse momentum range 7-50 GeV/c and absolute rapidity 0-2.4. The B$^0_s$ meson is observed with a statistical significance in excess of five standard deviations for the first time in nucleus-nucleus collisions. The measurements are performed as functions of the transverse momentum of the B mesons and of the PbPb collision centrality. The ratio of production yields of B$^0_s$ and B$^+$ is measured and compared to theoretical models that include quark recombination effects.

In July 2018 an optimization run for the proposed charm cross section measurement for SHiP was performed at the CERN SPS. A heavy, moving target instrumented with nuclear emulsion films followed by a silicon pixel tracker was installed in front of the Goliath magnet at the H4 proton beamline. Behind the magnet, scintillating-fibre, drift-tube and RPC detectors were placed. The purpose of this run was to validate the measurement's feasibility, to develop the required analysis tools and fine-tune the detector layout. In this paper, we present the track reconstruction in the pixel tracker and the track matching with the moving emulsion detector. The pixel detector performed as expected and it is shown that, after proper alignment, a vertex matching rate of 87 % is achieved.

Using Atomic Force Microscopy Methods, we studied the samples of the cathodes of multiwire proportional chambers after long-term irradiation with a beta-source 90Sr at the longevity test. The changes in the morphology of the copper foil surface at the cathode of the detector as a result of the influence of the electron flow are described. It is presented a quantitative assessment and analysis of the evolution of the resulting radiation defects depending on the irradiation conditions. It is shown the similarity of the radiation defects in the laboratory prototypes and in full scale proportional chambers that have been operated at the LHC for almost 10 years.

Atomic-force microscopy methods were used to study specimens of cathodes of multiwire proportional chambers subjected to a long-term exposure to a β-source 90Sr in the course of laboratory longevity tests. The changes in the surface morphology of the copper foil at the detector cathode that have occurred as a result of action of an electron beam have been described. The quantitative estimate and analysis of the evolution of radiation defects depending on the irradiation dose are presented. The similarity of the radiation-induced defects in the laboratory prototypes and in the full-scale proportional chambers after their use for 10 years at the Large Hadron Collider is demonstrated.

Available data on the polarization of the secondary proton (as a function of its momentum K) in the inelastic (p, p') reactions with the ^9Be, ^12C, and ^40Ca nuclei and differential cross section data (the momentum distributions) for the reactions at the initial proton energy 1 GeV and scattering angles Θ=21^∘ and Θ=24.5^∘ were analysed in a range of the high momenta K close to the momentum corresponding to the proton elastic scattering off the investigated nucleus. A structure in the polarization and momentum distribution data at the high momenum K, related probably to quasi-elastic scattering off a ^8Be-like nucleon cluster inside the nuclei, was observed.

Dark photons are hypothetical massive vector particles that could mix with ordinary photons. The simplest theoretical model is fully characterised by only two parameters: the mass of the dark photon m _γ ^D and its mixing parameter with the photon, ε . The sensitivity of the SHiP detector is reviewed for dark photons in the mass range between 0.002 and 10 GeV. Different production mechanisms are simulated, with the dark photons decaying to pairs of visible fermions, including both leptons and quarks. Exclusion contours are presented and compared with those of past experiments. The SHiP detector is expected to have a unique sensitivity for m _γ ^D ranging between 0.8 and 3.3 ^+0.2_-0.5 GeV, and ε ^2 ranging between 10^-11 and 10^-17 .

AbstractThe antiproton experiment PANDA at FAIR is designed to bring hadron physics to a new level in terms of scope, precision and accuracy. In this work, its unique capability for studies of hyperons is outlined. We discuss ground-state hyperons as diagnostic tools to study non-perturbative aspects of the strong interaction, and fundamental symmetries. New simulation studies have been carried out for two benchmark hyperon-antihyperon production channels: $${\bar{p}}p \rightarrow {\bar{\varLambda }}\varLambda $$ p ¯ p → Λ ¯ Λ and $${\bar{p}}p \rightarrow {\bar{\varXi }}^+\varXi ^-$$ p ¯ p → Ξ ¯ + Ξ - . The results, presented in detail in this paper, show that hyperon-antihyperon pairs from these reactions can be exclusively reconstructed with high efficiency and very low background contamination. In addition, the polarisation and spin correlations have been studied, exploiting the weak, self-analysing decay of hyperons and antihyperons. Two independent approaches to the finite efficiency have been applied and evaluated: one standard multidimensional efficiency correction approach, and one efficiency independent approach. The applicability of the latter was thoroughly evaluated for all channels, beam momenta and observables. The standard method yields good results in all cases, and shows that spin observables can be studied with high precision and accuracy already in the first phase of data taking with PANDA.

A combination of searches for top squark pair production using proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV at the CERN LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb(-1) collected by the CMS experiment, is presented. Signatures with at least 2 jets and large missing transverse momentum are categorized into events with 0, 1, or 2 leptons. New results for regions of parameter space where the kinematical properties of top squark pair production and top quark pair production are very similar are presented. Depending on themodel, the combined result excludes a top squarkmass up to 1325 GeV for amassless neutralino, and a neutralinomass up to 700 GeV for a top squarkmass of 1150 GeV. Top squarks with masses from 145 to 295 GeV, for neutralino masses from 0 to 100 GeV, with a mass difference between the top squark and the neutralino in a window of 30 GeV around the mass of the top quark, are excluded for the first time with CMS data. The results of theses searches are also interpreted in an alternative signal model of dark matter production via a spin-0 mediator in association with a top quark pair. Upper limits are set on the cross section for mediator particle masses of up to 420 GeV.

The antiproton experiment PANDA at FAIR is designed to bring hadron physics to a new level in terms of scope, precision and accuracy. In this work, its unique capability for studies of hyperons is outlined. We discuss ground-state hyperons as diagnostic tools to study non-perturbative aspects of the strong interaction, and fundamental symmetries. New simulation studies have been carried out for two benchmark hyperon-antihyperon production channels: $${\bar{p}}p \rightarrow {\bar{\varLambda }}\varLambda $$ p ¯ p → Λ ¯ Λ and $${\bar{p}}p \rightarrow {\bar{\varXi }}^+\varXi ^-$$ p ¯ p → Ξ ¯ + Ξ - . The results, presented in detail in this paper, show that hyperon-antihyperon pairs from these reactions can be exclusively reconstructed with high efficiency and very low background contamination. In addition, the polarisation and spin correlations have been studied, exploiting the weak, self-analysing decay of hyperons and antihyperons. Two independent approaches to the finite efficiency have been applied and evaluated: one standard multidimensional efficiency correction approach, and one efficiency independent approach. The applicability of the latter was thoroughly evaluated for all channels, beam momenta and observables. The standard method yields good results in all cases, and shows that spin observables can be studied with high precision and accuracy already in the first phase of data taking with PANDA.

A bstract Dark matter is a well-established theoretical addition to the Standard Model supported by many observations in modern astrophysics and cosmology. In this context, the existence of weakly interacting massive particles represents an appealing solution to the observed thermal relic in the Universe. Indeed, a large experimental campaign is ongoing for the detection of such particles in the sub-GeV mass range. Adopting the benchmark scenario for light dark matter particles produced in the decay of a dark photon, with α D = 0 . 1 and m A ′ = 3 m χ , we study the potential of the SHiP experiment to detect such elusive particles through its Scattering and Neutrino detector (SND). In its 5-years run, corresponding to 2 · 10 20 protons on target from the CERN SPS, we find that SHiP will improve the current limits in the mass range for the dark matter from about 1 MeV to 300 MeV. In particular, we show that SHiP will probe the thermal target for Majorana candidates in most of this mass window and even reach the Pseudo-Dirac thermal relic.

The antiproton experiment PANDA at FAIR is designed to bring hadron physics to a new level in terms of scope, precision and accuracy. In this work, its unique capability for studies of hyperons is outlined. We discuss ground-state hyperons as diagnostic tools to study non-perturbative aspects of the strong interaction, and fundamental symmetries. New simulation studies have been carried out for two benchmark hyperon-antihyperon production channels: $${\bar{p}}p \rightarrow {\bar{\varLambda }}\varLambda $$ and $${\bar{p}}p \rightarrow {\bar{\varXi }}^+\varXi ^-$$ . The results, presented in detail in this paper, show that hyperon-antihyperon pairs from these reactions can be exclusively reconstructed with high efficiency and very low background contamination. In addition, the polarisation and spin correlations have been studied, exploiting the weak, self-analysing decay of hyperons and antihyperons. Two independent approaches to the finite efficiency have been applied and evaluated: one standard multidimensional efficiency correction approach, and one efficiency independent approach. The applicability of the latter was thoroughly evaluated for all channels, beam momenta and observables. The standard method yields good results in all cases, and shows that spin observables can be studied with high precision and accuracy already in the first phase of data taking with PANDA.