The results of studying characteristics of modules based on double-sided microstrip silicon sensors, which are designed to create the wide-aperture Silicon Tracking System for the BM@N facility, are presented. The main module features are the use of fast readout electronics based on the STS-XYTER chip and the application of ultralight (0.23

Приведены результаты измерений временного и энергетического разрешений для четырех прототипов электромагнитного калориметра PHOS эксперимента ALICE на Большом адронном коллайдере ЦЕРН. Каждый из прототипов состоит из девяти одинаковых детектирующих элементов, собранных в виде матрицы 3 × 3. Основой детектирующего элемента является неорганический сцинтиллирующий кристалл вольфрамата свинца PbWO 4 длиной 180 мм с поперечным сечением 22 × 22 мм 2 , просматриваемый с торца фотодетектором. В качестве фотодетекторов использовались лавинные фотодиоды и кремниевые фотоумножители различной чувствительной площади (Hamamatsu, Япония). Измерения проведены при температуре 17.5°C на электронной компоненте вторичных пучков частиц протонного синхротрона PS в ЦЕРН в диапазоне импульсов от 1 до 10 ГэВ/ с .

— The time and energy resolutions were measured for four prototypes of the PHOS electromagnetic calorimeter for the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Each prototype was made up of nine identical detection elements assembled as a 3 × 3 array. The detection element was based on a lead tungstate (PbWO 4 ) scintillating crystal with a length of 180 mm and a cross section of 22 × 22 mm 2 , which was viewed from its end face by a photodetector. Avalanche photodiodes and silicon photomultipliers with different active areas (Hamamatsu, Japan) were used as photodetectors. The measurements were made with the electron component of secondary particle beams of the PS proton synchrotron at CERN in the momentum range of 1−10 GeV/ c at a temperature of 17.5°C.

The Nuclotron-based Ion Collider fAcility (NICA) is under construction at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), with commissioning of the facility expected in late 2022. The Multi-Purpose Detector (MPD) has been designed to operate at NICA and its components are currently in production. The detector is expected to be ready for data taking with the first beams from NICA. This document provides an overview of the landscape of the investigation of the QCD phase diagram in the region of maximum baryonic density, where NICA and MPD will be able to provide significant and unique input. It also provides a detailed description of the MPD set-up, including its various subsystems as well as its support and computing infrastructures. Selected performance studies for particular physics measurements at MPD are presented and discussed in the context of existing data and theoretical expectations.

(SVD-2 Collaboration) A. G. Afonin, E. N. Ardashev, V. F. Golovkin, S. N. Golovnya, S. A. Gorokhov, A. A. Kiryakov, A. G. Kholodenko, V. V. Konstantinov, L. L. Kurchaninov, I. S. Lobanov, E. V. Lobanova, G. A. Mitrofanov, V. S. Petrov, A. V. Pleskach, M. K. Polkovnikov, V. N. Riadovikov*, V. N. Ronzhin, V. A. Senko,N. A. Shalanda, M. M. Soldatov, Yu. P. Tsyupa, A. P. Vorobiev, V. I. Yakimchuk, and V. N. Zapolskii∗ IHEP, Protvino, Moscow region, Russia.

It is shown that an increase in the area of photodetectors allows the PHOS electromagnetic calorimeter of the ALICE experiment to operate at room temperature with better spectrometric characteristics. The linearity of the calorimeter response has been investigated in the 1–110 GeV energy range using both Hamamatsu S8664-1010 avalanche photodiodes with a large area (10 × 10 mm2) and arrays of MPPC Hamamatsu S12572-015C silicon photomultipliers with a sensitive area of 6 × 6 mm2. The calorimeter based on avalanche photodiodes is linear in the energy range under investigation compared to a calorimeter composed of silicon-photomultiplier arrays.

The use of S12572 MPPC silicon photomultipliers (Hamamatsu) for improving the timing characteristics of the PHOS electromagnetic calorimeter in the ALICE experiment at CERN is described. It is shown that by introducing an additional photodetector, that is, a silicon photomultiplier, it is possible, without worsening the energy resolution, to significantly improve the time resolution of the PHOS spectrometer from the current values of 3–4 ns to 150–200 ps.

Experimental and theoretical studies of direct photon production in hadronic collisions essentially expand our insights in multiparticle production mechanisms. These photons are useful probes to investigate nuclear matter at all stages of the interaction. Soft photons play a particular role in these studies. Until now we have no explanation for the experimentally observed excess of soft photons. These photons have low transverse momenta \( p_{T} < 0.1\) GeV/c, \( \vert x\vert < 0.01\) . In this domain their yield exceeds the theoretical estimates by 5-8 times. The registration of soft photons at Nuclotron (LHEP, JINR) has been carried out by the electromagnetic calorimeter built by the SVD-2 Collaboration. Soft photon electromagnetic calorimeter was tested at U-70, IHEP (Protvino). For the first time the soft photon yield at interactions of 3.5A GeV/c per nucleon deuterium and lithium beams has been measured. The obtained energy spectra confirm the increased yield of soft photons with their energy less than 50MeV (in the laboratory system) in comparison with theoretical predictions and agree with previous experiments at high-energy interactions. It is planned to continue soft photon study at the future accelerator complex NICA with heavy-ion beams.

Описана конструкция калориметра мягких фотонов установки СВД-2. Апертура прибора 210 × 210 мм. Приведены первые результаты его испытания в ходе физического набора статистики в эксперименте E-190 на ускорителе У-70 ИФВЭ.

The design of the soft photon calorimeter for the SVD-2 experiment is described. The aperture of the calorimeter is 210 × 210 mm. The first results of its testing in the course of data acquisition in the E-190 experiment at the U-70 accelerator of the Institute for High Energy Physics are presented.

The stages of development and the current status of the versatile “Spectrometer with a Vertex Detector” setup designed for physics experiments at the U-70 accelerator of the Institute for High Energy Physics (Protvino) is described. The main detectors of the setup are the vertex detector based on silicon microstrip detectors, the wide-aperture magnetic spectrometer based on multiwire proportional chambers, and the lead-glass hodoscope γ detector. In the setup, there is a fast two-level trigger system for selecting required particle interactions. The key characteristics of the setup systems are presented, and the physical results obtained on it are briefly listed.

Описаны этапы развития и современное состояние многоцелевой установки “Спектрометр с вершинным детектором”, созданной для проведения физических экспериментов на ускорителе У-70 Института физики высоких энергий (Протвино). Основными детекторами установки являются: вершинный детектор на основе кремниевых микростриповых детекторов, широкоапертурный магнитный спектрометр на основе пропорциональных камер, годоскопический детектор -квантов, собранный из свинцовых стекол. Для отбора нужных взаимодействий частиц в установке имеется быстродействующая двухуровневая система запуска. Приведены основные характеристики созданных систем установки, кратко перечислены полученные физические результаты.

A prototype detector based on thin-walled segmented tubes has been developed and its parameters have been studied. The detector contains 360 registration channels with a straw diameter of 4mm. The prototype’ granularity is 4сm2 and the length of insensitive region due to straw internal elements is less than 5% of its full sensitive area. Deterioration of the spatial resolution near these elements is observed for 1.0% of the detector sensitive area. The time and spatial parameters of the detector do not differ from those of conventional tracking detectors based on drift tubes.

The Thermalization project is currently under way on the extracted proton beam of the U-70 accelerator at the Institute for High Energy Physics. The main goal of this experiment is to study the collective behavior of secondary particles produced in a multiparticle pp interaction at beam energy E = 50–70 GeV. The region of high charged-particle multiplicities n ch ≥ 10 is investigated. In this region, a significant portion of energy in the center-of-mass system is dissipated on production of secondary particles, which results in formation of a hadronic system. At the initial instant of evolution, the density of this system is high, which may be responsible for the collective behavior of the secondary particles. The investigations are performed at the SVD-2 wide-aperture magnetic spectrometer. A multichannel trigger scintillation hodoscope used to select rare events with a large number of charged particles exceeding the predetermined value is described. The main flow of low-multiplicity events is suppressed by the trigger system by a factor of ∼102.

The design and the characteristics of a drift tracker for the SVD-2 setup at the U-70 accelerator of the Institute for High Energy Physics (Protvino, Russia) are described. The drift tracker has been developed to improve the quality of track reconstruction in high-multiplicity events. It is composed of 2304 drift tubes with a diameter of 6 mm and a sensitive region 500–900 mm long. The distance between a track and the anode wire is determined from the drift time. The coordinate resolution and the detection efficiency of the tubes have been determined from the data of the accelerator run in 2006.

Data from the SVD-2 experiment that were obtained at the IHEP accelerator in 70-GeV/c proton-nucleus interactions are analyzed with the aim of searches for an exotic Θ+ baryon that decays through the pK S 0 channel. The reaction pN → pK S 0 + X characterized by a bounded multiplicity of charged secondaries is used for this analysis. A resonance of mass M = 1526 ± 3(stat.) ± 3(syst.) MeV/c2 and width Γ < 24 MeV/c2 is observed in the invariant-mass spectrum of the pK S 0 system at a statistical significance of 5.6σ. The mass and the width of this resonance correspond to the recently found positive-strangeness Θ+ baryon, which was predicted to be an exotic baryon consisting of five quarks (pentaquark), \(uudd\bar s\). The total cross section for the production of a Θ+ baryon in pA interactions is estimated at a value within the range 30–120 μb for xF ≥ 0. An analysis of the A dependence of the cross section for Θ+-baryon production does not reveal a significant deviation from the A dependence for inelastic events (∼A0.7).

The goal of the proposed experiment is to investigate the collective behavior of particles in the process of multiple hadron production in pp interaction pp → n π π + 2N at the beam energy Elab = 70 GeV. The domain of high multiplicity n π = 30–40, or z = n/\(\bar n\) = 4–6, will be studied. Near the threshold of reaction n π → 69, z → zth = 8.2, all particles acquire small relative momentum Δq < 1/R, where R is the dimension of the particle production region. As a consequence of multiboson interference, a number of collective effects may show up: (a) a drastic increase in the partial cross section σ(n) of production of n identical particles is expected, compared with commonly accepted extrapolation; (b) the formation of jets consisting of identical particles may occur as a result of the multiboson Bose-Einstein correlation (BEC) effect; (c) a large fluctuation of charged n(π+,π−) and neutral n(π0) components and onset of centauros or chiral condensate effects are anticipated; (d) an increase in the rate of direct γ as a result of the bremsstrahlung in the partonic cascade and annihilation of π+π− → nγ in dense and cold pionic gas or condensate is expected. In the domain of high multiplicity z ≥ 5, a major part of the c.m. energy \(\sqrt s = 11.6\) GeV is materialized, leading to a high-density thermalized hadronic system. Under this condition, a phase transition to cold quark-gluon plasma (QGP) may occur. The search for QGP signatures like large intermittency in the phase-space particle distribution and an enhanced rate of direct photons will be performed. The experimental setup is designed for detection of rare high-multiplicity events. The experiment is to be carried out at the extracted proton beam of the IHEP U-70 accelerator. The required beam intensity is ∼107 s−1. Under the assumption that the partial cross section σ(n π = 35) = 10-1 nb, the anticipated counting rate is 10-1 events/h. The multiboson BEC enhancement may drastically increase the counting rate.