ATLAS detector achieves millimeter precision in particle collision timing
Physicists have demonstrated that a new timing detector at the world's largest particle accelerator can pinpoint where collisions occur with 5.3-millimeter accuracy. The breakthrough improves the LHC's ability to reconstruct rare particle interactions, which could accelerate discovery of physics beyond current models and refine measurements critical to fundamental research programs.
Originaltitel: Performance of the ATLAS forward proton Time-of-Flight detector in Run 2
<p>We present performance studies of the Time-of-Flight (ToF) subdetector of the ATLAS Forward Proton (AFP) detector at the LHC. Efficiencies and resolutions are measured using highstatistics data samples collected at low and moderate pile-up in 2017, the first year when the detectors were installed on both sides of the interaction region. While low efficiencies are observed, of the order of a few percent, the resolutions of the two ToF detectors measured individually are 21 ps and 28 ps, yielding an expected resolution of the longitudinal position of the interaction, z(vtx), in the central ATLAS detector of 5.3 +/- 0.6 mm. This is in agreement with the observed width of the distribution of the difference between..vtx measured independently by the central ATLAS tracker and by the ToF detector, of 6.0 +/- 2.0 mm.</p>