Particle Data Analysis in High Energy Physics

Lecture 6 _
Z→qq
Accelerators &
Detector

Ahmet Bingül
METU, Physics
Feb 2026

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Introduction
We will briefly exemine the following topics:

Particle Accelerators
Particle Detectors

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Particle Accelerators

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Interaction of Charged Particles
In particle accelerators we use electric and magnetic fields.

A particle accelerator is a device that uses electric fields to propel ions or charged
subatomic particles to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams.

An ordinary CRT television

set is a simple form of accelerator.

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▪ Accelerators are some of the remarkable tools of modern science.

▪ They have an important role in Particle Physics (PP) and Nuclear Physics (NP)

▪ Nowadays, they are in demand of variety of applications:

➢ Condensed matter Physics
➢ Electronic industry
➢ Biomedical areas
➢ Geophysical areas
➢ Food processing
➢ Sewage treatment

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▪ In PP and NP we have to consider
➢ the required energies of particles
➢ the desired beam intensity
➢ the economic constraints

▪ Basically accelerators can be categorised in two types

➢ Linear accelerators (Linac)
➢ Circular accelerators

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Cookroft-Walton Machine
➢ First high voltage particle acc. (developed 1930s)

➢ Voltage-doubling circuits were used (~ 100 kV)

➢ Based on passing ions through sets of aligned

electrodes operated at successfully higher
fixed potentials

➢ They won Nobel prize for

“Transmutation of atomic
nuclei by artificially accelerated
atomic particles”

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Linear Accelerators
▪ In a linear accelerator (or linac) for acclerating ions, particles pass through a
series of metal pipes called drift tubes, that are located in a vacuum vessel and
connected successively to alternate terminals of an R.F. oscillator.

[Link]

Particle Accelerators Page 8

▪ Energy is gained by RF cavities

SLAC - Standford Linear Accelerator Center

➢ Total length = 3.2 km
➢ 100,000 RF cavity
➢ Ecm = 50 GeV (electron)

Particle Accelerators Page 9

Cyclotrons
▪ Circular (or Cyclic) accelerators used for low-energy nuclear physics experiments
are of a type called cyclotrons.
▪ They are also used to produce beams of particles for medical applications,
including proton beams for radiation therapy.

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▪ The accelerator consists of two ‘D’-shaped sections across which an r.f. electric field is
established.
▪ Charged ions are injected into the machine near its centre and are constrained to traverse
outward in spiral trajectories by a magnetic field.
▪ The ions are accelerated each time they pass across the gap between the dees.
▪ At the maximum radius, which
corresponds to
the maximum energy, the beam is
extracted to hit a target

[Link]

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LEP (Large electron-positron Collider)
▪ LEP was one of the largest particle
accelerators ever constructed.
▪ It was built at CERN.
▪ The results of the LEP experiments
allowed precise values of many
quantities of the Standard Model,
such as W and Z bosons.
Some properties
➢ Circumference = 27 km
➢ About ~100 m underground
➢ 1989-1995: Z boson precision measurement
at ECM = mZc2 = 91.2 GeV
➢ 1995-2000: W± boson precision measurement
at ECM = 2mWc2 = 160 GeV

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LHC: Large Hadron Collider
▪ Large : circumference = 27 km
Hadron: accelerated particles
➢ protons with Ecm = 14 TeV
➢ Pb ions with Ecm = 1150 TeV
(82 p ve 125 n)

▪ LHC project:
➢ Idea: December 1994
➢ LEP is converted to LHC
➢ Started at September 2008
➢ Cost: 3 billon €
➢ Web: [Link]

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Why Large?
Centripedal Force: 𝐹 = 𝑚𝑣 2 /𝑟
Lorentz Force: 𝐹 = 𝑒𝑣𝐵
Relativistic Dynamics:
𝑝 = γ𝑚𝑣 γ = (1 − 𝑣 2 /𝑐 2 )−1/2

𝑑𝑝 𝑑𝑣 𝑣2
𝐹= = γ𝑚 = γ𝑚 = 𝑒𝑣𝐵
𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡 𝑟
Momentum: 𝑝 = 𝑒𝐵𝑟
Total Energy: 𝐸= 𝑝2 𝑐 2 + 𝑚2 𝑐 4
Ultra-relativistic 𝐸 ≈ 𝑝𝑐 = 𝑒𝑐𝐵𝑟
limit:
𝐸(GeV) = 0.3𝐵𝑟
Therefore, energy gained by the particle is proportional to radius of curvature
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 Why Large?

Synchrotron radiation is the name given to the radiation which occurs when charged particles
are accelerated in a curved path or orbit.

Classically, any charged particle which moves in a curved path or is accelerated in a straight-
line path will emit electromagnetic radiation.

Particularly in the application to circular particle accelerators like synchrotrons, the radiation
is referred to as synchrotron radiation.

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Why Large?

The large circumference is prefered to keep the synchrotron radiation to a practical level.
The rate of energy loss being inversely proportional to the radius of curvature.
Under the circular acceleration, an particles emits synchrotron radiation, the energy radiated (power lost)
per particle per turn is:

2𝑘𝑒 2 𝛾 4 𝑣 4
𝑃=
3𝑐 3 𝑟 2

The loss of energy per orbit (turn) can be calculated from:

2𝜋𝑟 4𝜋𝑘𝑒 2 𝛾 4 𝛽3
Δ𝐸 = 𝑃𝑇 = 𝑃 =
𝑣 3𝑟

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 LHC Complex

Protons are taken from

H2
Ep ≈ 0, t=0
LINAC2
Ep = 50 MeV
PSB:
Proton Synchroton
Booster
Ep = 1.4 GeV
PS
Ep = 25 GeV
SPS: Super PS t = 20 min.
Ep = 450 GeV Ep = 7 TeV
LHC Detectors
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About p-p collision at LHC
▪ Maximum CM collision energy: Ecm = 14 TeV

▪ Total number of bunch: 2808 x 2808

▪ Bunch diameter: D = 16 μm (hair 50 μm)

▪ Number of particles per bunch: N =1011

▪ Luminosity: L = 1034 cm‒2s‒1

▪ Distance between two bunches: d = 7.5 m

▪ Cross-over rate: t = 25 ns
Collision wreck
▪ Collision frequency
f = 1/25 ns = 40,000,000 Hz = 40 MHz

▪ Number of head on collision per bunch is 20

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Event Size
Event size depends on the number of particles produced in the collision!

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Particle Detectors

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Detector
To detect (see) a particle,

1. it must interact with matter

2. it must result in a measurable quantities in detection system
Detector

Particle
Matter Output ?
current,
voltage,
resistance,
time,
length …

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Detector Simulation
In the Simulation of particle detectors we use theoretical calculations.

Inputs: 4-vector of particle(s), material and and geometry, E-B Fields, interaction physics
Outputs: Identity and 4-vector of particle(s), location and value of energy deposition in media, new partciles, …

Professional Simulation Programs: Geant4, Fluka, MCNP, Phits

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 Detectors employed in HEP experiments record
position, arrival time, momentum, energy and identity
of particles.

Charged particles ( 𝑒± 𝑝 𝐾± 𝜇 ± 𝜋± )
can be detected through their ionisation in tracking chambers
* a measure of the curvature of the track in a magnetic field
gives a measure of its momentum
* a measure of the rate of ionisation loss (dE/dx) can be used
to determine its type

Neutral particles ( 𝛾 𝑛 )
are detected via calorimeters, where their position
and energy are measured.

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We need charged particle tracking system in HEP experiments to determine
▪ # of charged particles produced in a reaction
▪ the identity of a charged particles
▪ the momentum of a charged particles

𝑚𝑣 2
= 𝑞𝑣𝐵
𝑅
𝑝 = 𝑚𝑣 = 𝐵𝑞𝑅

𝑝(GeV) = 0.3𝐵𝑅 B in Tesla and R in meter

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Ionisation Detectors
▪ Ionisation detectors are devices designed to measure the ionisation produced
when an incident particle traverses some medium.
▪ When a charged particle traverses a medium of a detector, it ionises the medium
and produces electron-ion pairs.

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Scintillation Detectors
▪ A scintillator is a material that exhibits scintillation when excited by ionizing
radiation.
▪ Scintillation is a flash of light produced in a transparent material by the passage of
a particle (an electron, an alpha particle, an ion, or a high-energy photon).

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Time of Flight Detectors
▪ The time of flight (TOF) describes the method used to measure the time
that it takes for a particle, object or stream to reach a detector while
traveling over a known distance (L).

▪ This method is usually limited to low-energy partices with momenta less

than about p = 4 Gev/c

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▪ L: particles’path between two counters
▪ t: time to traverse L
𝐿
particle speed = 𝑣 =
𝑡
▪ For two different particles with the same momentum p time difference is
𝐿 𝐿 𝐿 1 1
Δ𝑡 = 𝑡2 − 𝑡1 = − = −
𝑣2 𝑣1 𝑐 𝛽2 𝛽2

𝐿 𝐸2 𝐸1 𝐿
= − = 2 ([𝑚22 𝑐 4 + 𝑝2 𝑐 2 ]1/2 − [𝑚12 𝑐 4 + 𝑝2 𝑐 2 ]1/2 )
𝑐 𝑝𝑐 𝑝𝑐 𝑝𝑐

▪ For known momentum and time, the mass and its resolution of a particle is given by:
measured mass: mass resolution:
𝑐2𝑡2 2 2
𝑚=𝑝 −1 𝑑𝑚 𝑑𝑝 𝑑𝑡
𝐿2 = + 𝛾4
𝑚 𝑝 𝑡

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Calorimeters
For electrons and photons of high
energy, a dramatic result of the
combined phenomena of
bramsstrahlung and pair production
is the occurance of cascade showers.

A parent electron will radiate photons,

which converts to pairs, which radiate
and produce fresh pairs in turn, the
number of particles increasing
exponentially with depth in the
medium.

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Big Detectors
Different particle types interact differently with matter e.g. photons do not feel a magnetic field.
Therefore, we need different types of detectectors to measure different types of particles.

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The ALEPH Detector used between 1989-2000 at LEP

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The ALEPH Detector

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Some Recorded ALEPH Events
Z → e+e‒ Z → μ+μ‒

_
Z→qq

YFD Page 35
LHC Detectors

CMS

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ATLAS Detector is a combination of sub-detectors

22 m

44 m
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Four Main Parts of ATLAS
▪ Inner tracker Muon Sepectometer
Measures the momentum of the charged Measures the energy of muons
particles
Magnet System
▪ Calorimeter Supplies the magnetic field to bend the charged
Measures the energies of particles particles for measuresuring p.

YFD Page 38
Page 39
CMS Detector is a combination of sub-detectors

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Problems
1. In the Tevatron, protons are injected from a ring that uses a conventional magnets into
final, superconducting ring with about 150 GeV. Then they gain roughly 1 MeV per orbit as
the move around the final ring. (a) How many orbits does a proton have to make to gain the
full energy of 1 TeV? (b) Given that the ring has radius 1 km, how far does the proton travel
inside the ring and how long does this final acceleration take?

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2. At the Tevatron, protons and and antiprotons, ortiting in opposite directions around a
circle of radius of 1 km, are used for the collision at the ECM = 1.96 TeV. Calculate the
radiated power and energy loss per turn for the antiprotons.

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3. The LEP electron synchrotron has a rated energy about E = 50 GeV and a radius of
r = 4.3 km. Calculate the radiated power and energy loss per turn for the electrons.

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4. (a) A radioactive source emits alpha-particles with kinetic energies of 4 MeV. What must
be the value of an applied magnetic field so that the radius of curvature of the orbit of the
alpha-particles is 10 cm?

(b) Do the same calculation for electrons and protons of the same kinetic energy.

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5. If the time resolution of each of two counters (of a TOF detector) that are 2 m apart is 0.2
ns, calculate to better than 10% accuracy the momentum at which the system will just be
able to resolve a pion from a kaon.

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6. Calculate the minimum flight path neccessary to distinguish pions from kaons if they have
momentum 3 GeV/c and TOF can be measured with an accuracy of 200 ps.

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7. The momentum of a particle is measured as p = 2.0 ± 0.1 GeV. If the time to travel the
distance L = 6.0 m in TOF detector, whose time resolution is dt = 10.0 ps, is measured as
t = 20.05 ns, determine the mass of and the mass resolution for this particle.

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