Wednesday 19 October 2016 

Speaker: Prof Jim Virdee (Imperial College London)


Title: "A Novel Calorimeter for HL-LHC and Beyond”

Abstract: In the high luminosity phase of the LHC project (HL-LHC) the experiments are to be upgraded to sustain much higher instantaneous and integrated luminosities. CMS’ plans for upgrading the current detector for the high luminosity will be briefly outlined, with particular emphasis on endcap calorimetry. The HL-LHC schedule calls for data taking to start in mid-2020's and to integrate ~3000 fb-1. The physics and technological reasoning behind CMS’ choice of a novel silicon based high granularity sampling endcap calorimeter will be given. The approach combines techniques so far only used independently either in charged particle tracking or conventional calorimeters. The proposed calorimeter is based on large-scale (600 m2) use of silicon sensors, with fine lateral (cell size < 1cm2) and longitudinal segmentation. In addition to the measurement of the energy of high energy electromagnetic and hadronic showers (jets) it is envisaged to use information about their precise timing, the path they follow, both longitudinally and transversely, to provide sufficient information to be able to cope with the extreme rates associated with the HL-LHC. New technologies have to be developed that include radiation hard electronics in 130 nm or 65 nm feature size technology, low-cost Si sensors, environmentally-friendly cooling technologies using liquid CO2 and high performance and fast decision making logic using new more powerful FPGA’s for selecting online ~ 10 k events/s of interest from the 5 billion interactions/s, all to be produced at an industrial scale. The status of the project and the ongoing R&D and prototyping will be presented.