Measurements in p+p and Pb+Pb collisions with the atlas zero degree calorimeter

• Grant number: 10/06953-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2010
• End date: July 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Elementary Particle Physics and Fields
• Principal Investigator: Marco Aurelio Lisboa Leite
• Grantee: Marisilvia Donadelli
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física (IF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) will extend the frontiers of Particle Physics to new regimes of energy, allowing the TeV scale to be explored. A diverse number of processes in the context of the Standard Model has been used to guide the project and pre-requisites of the ATLAS (AToroidal LHC ApparatuS) detector. Designed to collide protons at a c.m. energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 14 TeV, the LHC will also accelerate ions up to the same magnetic rigidity, i.e., a c.m. energy per nucleon pair of 5.5 TeV for Pb+Pb. Last November, the LHC started the first data taking period with p+p collisions at low luminosity and measurements of properties of minimum bias events were performed by the ATLAS detector. At this very beginning of operations, the ZDC (Zero Degree Calorimeter) - designed to detect neutrons and photons - plays an important role, being implemented in the Level - 1 trigger of the experiment, contributing to record minimum bias events. In Pb+Pb collisions, the ZDC's main purpose is the determination of the collision centrality. Measurements of global variables as a function of the collision centrality in almost full azimuthal coverage will also be performed by the ATLAS detector. It is part of the objectives of this project the participation on the implementation of the ZDC as a trigger in minimum bias events in p+p as well as its complete instrumentation necessary for the global variables measurements em Pb+Pb collisions. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

AAD, G.; ABAJYAN, T.; ABBOTT, B.; ABDALLAH, J.; KHALEK, S. ABDEL; ABDELALIM, A. A.; ABDINOV, O.; ABEN, R.; ABI, B.; ABOLINS, M.; et al. Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Physics Letters B, v. 716, n. 1, p. 1-29, SEP 17 2012. (10/06953-1)