590 research outputs found
A simulation tool for MRPC telescopes of the EEE project
The Extreme Energy Events (EEE) Project is mainly devoted to the study of the
secondary cosmic ray radiation by using muon tracker telescopes made of three
Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC) each. The experiment consists of a
telescope network mainly distributed across Italy, hosted in different building
structures pertaining to high schools, universities and research centers.
Therefore, the possibility to take into account the effects of these structures
on collected data is important for the large physics programme of the project.
A simulation tool, based on GEANT4 and using GEMC framework, has been
implemented to take into account the muon interaction with EEE telescopes and
to estimate the effects on data of the structures surrounding the experimental
apparata.A dedicated event generator producing realistic muon distributions,
detailed geometry and microscopic behavior of MRPCs have been included to
produce experimental-like data. The comparison between simulated and
experimental data, and the estimation of detector resolutions is here presented
and discussed
Latest results from NA60
The NA60 experiment has measured the production of muon pairs and of charged
particles in In+In collisions at a beam energy of 158 AGeV. For invariant
dimuon masses below the phi the space-time averaged rho spectral function was
isolated by a novel procedure. It shows a strong broadening but essentially no
shift in mass. The production of J/psi was measured as a function of the
collision centrality. As in previous experiments studying Pb+Pb collisions an
anomalous supression is observed, setting in at approximately 90 participant
nucleons. Using the charged particles the reaction plane was reconstructed. The
elliptic flow of charged particles increases with pt showing a saturation for
pt > 2GeV/c. For the first time azimuthal distributions for J/psi are shown.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, talk given at the conference "Strangeness in
Quark Matter 2006 (SQM2006)", March 2006, Los Angeles, USA, accepted for
publication in Journal of Physics
Evidence for radial flow of thermal dileptons in high-energy nuclear collisions
The NA60 experiment at the CERN SPS has studied low-mass dimuon production in
158 AGeV In-In collisions. An excess of pairs above the known meson decays has
been reported before. We now present precision results on the associated
transverse momentum spectra. The slope parameter Teff extracted from the
spectra rises with dimuon mass up to the rho, followed by a sudden decline
above. While the initial rise is consistent with the expectations for radial
flow of a hadronic decay source, the decline signals a transition to an
emission source with much smaller flow. This may well represent the first
direct evidence for thermal radiation of partonic origin in nuclear collisions.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter
First Measurement of the rho Spectral Function in High-Energy Nuclear Collisions
We report on a precision measurement of low-mass muon pairs in 158 AGeV
indium-indium collisions at the CERN SPS. A significant excess of pairs is
observed above the yield expected from neutral meson decays. The unprecedented
sample size of 360 000 dimuons and the good mass resolution of about 2% allow
us to isolate the excess by subtraction of the decay sources. The shape of the
resulting mass spectrum is consistent with a dominant contribution from
pi+pi-->rho-->mu+mu- annihilation. The associated space-time averaged rho
spectral function shows a strong broadening, but essentially no shift in mass.
This may rule out theoretical models linking hadron masse
NA60 results on spectra and the spectral function in In-In collisions
The NA60 experiment at the CERN SPS has studied low-mass muon pairs in 158
AGeV In-In collisions. A strong excess of pairs is observed above the yield
expected from neutral meson decays. The unprecedented sample size of close to
400K events and the good mass resolution of about 2% have made it possible to
isolate the excess by subtraction of the decay sources (keeping the ).
The shape of the resulting mass spectrum exhibits considerable broadening, but
essentially no shift in mass. The acceptance-corrected transverse-momentum
spectra have a shape atypical for radial flow and show a significant mass
dependence, pointing to different sources in different mass regions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Quark Matter 2006 conference proceeding
J/psi azimuthal anisotropy relative to the reaction plane in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 GeV per nucleon
The J/ azimuthal distribution relative to the reaction plane has been
measured by the NA50 experiment in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 GeV/nucleon. Various
physical mechanisms related to charmonium dissociation in the medium created in
the heavy ion collision are expected to introduce an anisotropy in the
azimuthal distribution of the observed J/ mesons at SPS energies. Hence,
the measurement of J/ elliptic anisotropy, quantified by the Fourier
coefficient v of the J/ azimuthal distribution relative to the
reaction plane, is an important tool to constrain theoretical models aimed at
explaining the anomalous J/ suppression observed in Pb-Pb collisions. We
present the measured J/ yields in different bins of azimuthal angle
relative to the reaction plane, as well as the resulting values of the Fourier
coefficient v as a function of the collision centrality and of the
J/ transverse momentum. The reaction plane has been estimated from the
azimuthal distribution of the neutral transverse energy detected in an
electromagnetic calorimeter. The analysis has been performed on a data sample
of about 100 000 events, distributed in five centrality or p
sub-samples. The extracted v values are significantly larger than zero
for non-central collisions and are seen to increase with p.Comment: proceedings of HP08 conference corrected a typo in one equatio
First results from NA60 on low mass muon pair production in In-In collisions at 158 GeV/nucleon
The NA60 experiment at the CERN SPS studies dimuon production in
proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions. The combined information from a
novel vertex telescope made of radiation-tolerant silicon pixel detectors and
from the muon spectrometer previously used in NA50 allows for a precise
measurement of the muon vertex and a much improved dimuon mass resolution. We
report on first results from the data taken for Indium-Indium collisions at 158
AGeV/nucleon in 2003, concentrating on a subsample of about 370 000 muon pairs
in the mass range GeV/. The light vector mesons and
are completely resolved, with a mass resolution of about 23 MeV/
at the . The transverse momentum spectra of the are measured over
the continuous range GeV/c; the inverse slope parameter of
the spectra is found to increase with centrality, with an average value of
MeV.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. Plenary talk, SQM2004 conference, Cape Town,
South Africa 15-20 September, 2004. To be published in Journal of Physics G:
Nuclear and Particle Physic
Study of the electromagnetic transition form-factors in \eta -> \mu^+\mu^-\gamma and \omega -> \mu^+\mu^-\pi^0 decays with NA60
The NA60 experiment at the CERN SPS has studied low-mass muon pairs in 158A
GeV In-In collisions. The mass and pT spectra associated with peripheral
collisions can quantitatively be described by the known neutral meson decays.
The high data quality has allowed to remeasure the electromagnetic transition
form factors of the Dalitz decays \eta -> \mu^+\mu^-\gamma and \omega ->
\mu^+\mu^-\pi^0. Using the usual pole approximation F =
(1-M_{\mu\mu}^{2}/\Lambda^{2})^{-1} for the form factors, we find \Lambda^{-2}
(in GeV^{-2}) to be 1.95+-0.17(stat.)+-0.05(syst.) for the \eta and
2.24+-0.06(stat.)+-0.02(syst.) for the \omega. While the values agree with
previous results from the Lepton-G experiment, the errors are greatly improved,
confirming now on the level of 10\sigma the strong enhancement of the \omega
form factor beyond the expectation from vector meson dominance. An improved
value of the branching ratio BR(\omega -> \mu^+\mu^-\pi^0) =
[1.73+-0.25(stat.)+-0.14(syst.)]*10^{-4} has been obtained as a byproduct.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Lett.
The ALICE Zero Degree Calorimeters
In the ALICE experiment at Cern LHC, a set of hadron calorimeters will be used to determine the centrality of the Pb-Pb collision. The spectator protons and neutrons, will be separated from the ion beams, using the separator magnet (D1) of the LHC beam optics and respectively detected by a proton (ZP) and a neutron (ZN) "Zero-degree Calorimeter" (ZDC). The detectors will be placed in front of the separator D2 magnet, 115 meters away from the beam intersection point. The ZDCs are quartz-fiber spaghetti calorimeters that exploit the Cherenkov light produced by the shower particles in silica optical fibers.This technique offers the advantages of high radiation hardness (up to several Grad), fast response and reduced lateral dimension of the detectable shower. In addition, quartz-fiber calorimeters are intrinsically insensitive to radio-activation background, which produces particles below the Cherenkov threshold.The ALICE ZDC should have an energy resolution comparable with the intrinsic energy fluctuations, which range from about 20 0.000000or central events to about 5 0.000000or peripheral ones, according to simulations that use HIJING as event generator. The fiber-to-absorber filling ratio must be chosen as a good compromise between the required energy resolution and the fiber cost.The design of the proposed calorimeter will be discussed, together with the expected performances. Whenever possible, the simulated results will be compared with the experimental ones, obtained with the built prototypes and with the NA50 ZDC, which can be considered as a working prototype for the ALICE neutron calorimeter
Bottomonium and Drell-Yan production in p-A collisions at 450 GeV
The NA50 Collaboration has measured heavy-quarkonium production in p-A
collisions at 450 GeV incident energy (sqrt(s) = 29.1 GeV). We report here
results on the production of the Upsilon states and of high-mass Drell-Yan muon
pairs (m > 6 GeV). The cross-section at midrapidity and the A-dependence of the
measured yields are determined and compared with the results of other
fixed-target experiments and with the available theoretical estimates. Finally,
we also address some issues concerning the transverse momentum distributions of
the measured dimuons.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, to be published in Phys. Lett.
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