The ASTERIX spectrometer at LEAR

The ASTERIX spectrometer has been used to study the formation and the ground state of the pp atom and exclusive final states of pp annihilation at rest in a H2 gas target at NTP, using antiprotons from the Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR) at CERN. The article describes the mechanical construction of the apparatus, the trigger logic, the chamber readout, and the data acquisition system. The detector calibration and the offline processing of the 55 million reconstructed events are illustrated. An overview is given about the new physics results obtained by the experiment.

Results of prototype studies for a spaghetti calorimeter

In the framework of the LAA project, prototypes for a new type of calorimeter, intended for the detection of both electromagnetic (e.m.) and hadronic showers, muons and missing energy (e.g. neutrinos) at high-luminosity multi-TeV pp colliders, were tested. The detector consists of scintillating plastic fibres embedded in a lead matrix at a volume ratio 1:4, such as to achieve compensation. The optimization of the construction of the detector modules is described, as well as the performance concerning e.m. shower and muon detection and e/π separation. We used electron, pion and muon beams in the energy range 10–150 GeV for this purpose. For the energy resolution of electrons we found 13%/trE…

Advances in Technology for High-Energy Subnuclear Physics. Contribution of the LAA Project.

Electron-pion discrimination with a scintillating fiber calorimeter

Abstract We report on an experimental study of a variety of techniques for discriminating between (isolated) electrons and pions in a lead and scintillating fiber calorimeter without longitudinal segmentation. Using information from the lateral shower development, from a pre-shower detector, from the time structure of the signals, or from a combination of these we measure pion rejection factors of up to several thousand while maintaining electron efficiencies of 95% or higher.