FasTER · Development of Fast Timing tools for Event Reconstruction at the high luminosity frontier

Development of Fast Timing tools for Event Reconstruction at the high luminosity frontier

The scientific program of high energy physics experiments, which includes precision measurements of the recently-discovered Higgs boson, consistency tests of the standard model of particle interactions, and searches for new heavy or exotic particles, will benefit greatly from the enormous dataset provided by high-intensity future proton-proton colliders. However, the projected beam intensities will result in several hundreds of concurrent proton-proton interactions per bunch crossing, spread over a luminous region of order 5 cm along the beam axis and of about 200 ps in time. At this high collision multiplicities, particle reconstruction and correct assignment to primary interaction vertices present a formidable challenge to the detectors that must be overcome in order to harvest the benefits of the increased beam intensity. Time tagging of minimum ionizing particles (MIPs) and of neutral particles in the calorimeters with a resolution a factor ten smaller than the time spread of the interaction vertices provides further discrimination of interaction vertices in the same bunch crossing beyond conventional spatial tracking algorithms. The goal of this project was the definition of a viable way to exploit precision timing in event reconstruction at the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider, planned to begin operation in 2026, and provide the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment with ultimate timing capabilities. On the hardware side, the project studied the ability of microchannel plates, commonly used as amplification stage in light detection systems, to time-tag MIPs and high energy electromagnetic showers. Satisfactory performance was achieved with small scale prototypes, with a complete understanding of the effects contributing to the detector response. The integration of this detection technique in a large scale experiment requires further work. This project also contributed, through the development of specific algorithms, to motivate the need for a dedicated timing layer showing the improvements in reconstructed observables afforded by four-dimensional (space and time) tracking. These improvements will enable future experiments to exploit the data delivered by future high-intensity colliders fully.

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