Characterization of new hybrid pixel module concepts for the ATLAS Insertable B-Layer upgrade

The ATLAS Insertable B-Layer (IBL) collaboration plans to insert a fourth pixel layer inside the present Pixel Detector to recover from eventual failures in the current pixel system, especially the b-layer. Additionally the IBL will ensure excellent tracking, vertexing and b-tagging performance during the LHC phase I and add robustness in tracking with high luminosity pile-up. The expected peak luminosity for IBL is 2 to 3centerdot1034 cm-2s-1 and IBL is designed for an integrated luminosity of 700 fb-1. This corresponds to an expected fluence of 5centerdot1015 1 MeV neqcm-2 and a total ionizing dose of 250 MRad. In order to cope with these requirements, two new module concepts are under investigation, both based on a new front end IC, called FE-I4. This IC was designed as readout chip for future ATLAS Pixel Detectors and its first application will be the IBL. The planar pixel sensor (PPS) based module concept benefits from its well understood design, which is kept as similar as possible to the design of the current ATLAS Pixel Detector sensor. The second approach of the new three dimensional (3D) silicon sensor technology benefits from the shorter charge carrier drift distance to the electrodes, which completely penetrate the sensor bulk. Prototype modules of both sensor concepts have been build and tested in laboratory and test beam environment before and after irradiation. Both concepts show very high performance even after irradiation to 5centerdot1015 1 MeV neqcm-2 and meet the IBL specifications in terms of hit efficiency being larger than 97%. Lowest operational threshold studies have been effected and prove independent of the used sensor concept the excellent performance of FE-I4 based module concepts in terms of noise hit occupancy at low thresholds.Comment: Part of 9th International Conference on Position Sensitive Detectors (PSD9

Low power discriminator for ATLAS pixel chip

The design of the front-end (FE) pixel electronics requires low power, low noise and low threshold dispersion. In this work, we propose a new architecture for the discriminator circuit. It is based on the principle of dynamic biasing and developed for the FE chip of the ATLAS pixel upgrade. This paper presents two discriminator structures where the bias current depends on the presence of a signal at the input of the discriminator. Since the activity in the FE chip is very low, the power consumption is largely reduced allowing the material reduction in the B-layer

Charge Pump Clock Generation PLL for the Data Output Block of the Upgraded ATLAS Pixel Front-End in 130 nm CMOS

FE-I4 is the 130 nm ATLAS pixel IC currently under development for upgraded Large Hadron Collider (LHC) luminosities. FE-I4 is based on a low-power analog pixel array and digital architecture concepts tuned to higher hit rates [1]. An integrated Phase Locked Loop (PLL) has been developed that locally generates a clock signal for the 160 Mbit/s output data stream from the 40 MHz bunch crossing reference clock. This block is designed for low power, low area consumption and recovers quickly from loss of lock related to single-event transients in the high radiation environment of the ATLAS pixel detector. After a general introduction to the new FE-I4 pixel front-end chip, this work focuses on the FE-I4 output blocks and on a first PLL prototype test chip submitted in early 2009. The PLL is nominally operated from a 1.2V supply and consumes 3.84mW of DC power. Under nominal operating conditions, the control voltage settles to within 2% of its nominal value in less than 700 ns. The nominal operating frequency for the ring-oscillator based Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) is fVCO = 640MHz. The last sections deal with a fabricated demonstrator that provides the option of feeding the single-ended 80MHz output clock of the PLL as a clock signal to a digital test logic block integrated on-chip. The digital logic consists of an eight bit pseudo-random binary sequence generator, an eight bit to ten bit coder and a serializer. It processes data with a speed of 160 Mbit/s. All dynamic signals are driven off-chip by custommade pseudo-LVDS drivers

Prototype ATLAS IBL Modules using the FE-I4A Front-End Readout Chip

The ATLAS Collaboration will upgrade its semiconductor pixel tracking detector with a new Insertable B-layer (IBL) between the existing pixel detector and the vacuum pipe of the Large Hadron Collider. The extreme operating conditions at this location have necessitated the development of new radiation hard pixel sensor technologies and a new front-end readout chip, called the FE-I4. Planar pixel sensors and 3D pixel sensors have been investigated to equip this new pixel layer, and prototype modules using the FE-I4A have been fabricated and characterized using 120 GeV pions at the CERN SPS and 4 GeV positrons at DESY, before and after module irradiation. Beam test results are presented, including charge collection efficiency, tracking efficiency and charge sharing.Comment: 45 pages, 30 figures, submitted to JINS

Inclusive search for same-sign dilepton signatures in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

An inclusive search is presented for new physics in events with two isolated leptons (e or mu) having the same electric charge. The data are selected from events collected from p p collisions at root s = 7 TeV by the ATLAS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb(-1). The spectra in dilepton invariant mass, missing transverse momentum and jet multiplicity are presented and compared to Standard Model predictions. In this event sample, no evidence is found for contributions beyond those of the Standard Model. Limits are set on the cross-section in a fiducial region for new sources of same-sign high-mass dilepton events in the ee, e mu and mu mu channels. Four models predicting same-sign dilepton signals are constrained: two descriptions of Majorana neutrinos, a cascade topology similar to supersymmetry or universal extra dimensions, and fourth generation d-type quarks. Assuming a new physics scale of 1 TeV, Majorana neutrinos produced by an effective operator V with masses below 460 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level. A lower limit of 290 GeV is set at 95% confidence level on the mass of fourth generation d-type quarks

Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at \sqrt{s}=7\TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section for top quark pairs(\ttbar) in $pp$ collisions at \sqrt{s}=7 \TeV is presented using data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in two different topologies: single lepton (electron $e$ or muon $\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least four jets, and dilepton ($ee$, $\mu\mu$ or $e\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least two jets. In a data sample of 2.9 pb-1, 37 candidate events are observed in the single-lepton topology and 9 events in the dilepton topology. The corresponding expected backgrounds from non-\ttbar Standard Model processes are estimated using data-driven methods and determined to be $12.2 \pm 3.9$ events and $2.5 \pm 0.6$ events, respectively. The kinematic properties of the selected events are consistent with SM \ttbar production. The inclusive top quark pair production cross-section is measured to be \sigmattbar=145 \pm 31 ^{+42}_{-27} pb where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measurement agrees with perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 30 pages plus author list (50 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, CERN-PH number and final journal adde

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Single hadron response measurement and calorimeter jet energy scale uncertainty with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

The uncertainty on the calorimeter energy response to jets of particles is derived for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). First, the calorimeter response to single isolated charged hadrons is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo simulation using proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of sqrt(s) = 900 GeV and 7 TeV collected during 2009 and 2010. Then, using the decay of K_s and Lambda particles, the calorimeter response to specific types of particles (positively and negatively charged pions, protons, and anti-protons) is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo predictions. Finally, the jet energy scale uncertainty is determined by propagating the response uncertainty for single charged and neutral particles to jets. The response uncertainty is 2-5% for central isolated hadrons and 1-3% for the final calorimeter jet energy scale.Comment: 24 pages plus author list (36 pages total), 23 figures, 1 table, submitted to European Physical Journal

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1. The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG + Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version published in European Physical Journal