This year’s edition of the Terascale Detector Workshop was organised in conjunction with the PRISMA+ School 2024
28 February 2024
Born within the Helmholtz Alliance “Physics at the Terascale”, a network of German research institutes working on experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the Terascale Detector Workshop has now reached its 16th edition, which recently took place at the Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) Mainz. During the workshop about 100 scientists came together to discuss the most relevant aspects of current experiments in which particles are accelerated up to energies of several teraelectronvolts.
The local organisers have joined forces with the Research Training Group “Particle detectors for future experiments” and the PRISMA Detector Lab, combining a two-day hands-on school on Silicon Photomultipliers and Scintillators with the traditional series of plenary talks in the same week. The event started on the morning Monday 19th with a visit to the MAMI accelerator on the JGU campus.
Hands-on School on Silicon Photomultipliers and Scintillators
From the afternoon of Monday 19th to the morning of Wednesday 21st, about 30 early career researchers registered for the workshop attended the PRISMA+ School 2024, organised and taught by Dr. Stefan Schoppmann, Dr. Quirin Weitzel and the members of the PRISMA Detector Lab. After an introductory lecture on silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) and plastic and liquid scintillators, the participants started with hands-on laboratory sessions. Using educational photon kits, they explored the characteristics of SiPMs, from their spectrum and resolution performance to their dependence on voltage and temperature. In particular gain, dark count rate and cross-talk were investigated. With this knowledge, the participants applied their kits to the detection of cosmic ray muons. Finally, the groups worked on practical exercises with coincidence logic and samples of opaque scintillators.
Terascale Detector Workshop
From Wednesday 21st until Friday 23rd, about 100 scientists from various German universities and research institutes gathered for talks and discussion on particle detector requirements, technologies and operation. “The program of the workshop is proposed by the organising committee, based on the latest developments in the field, with carefully chosen topics and invited speakers, all presenting their work in plenary sessions”, comments Prof. Dr. Lucia Masetti, organiser of the event. Renowned experts as well as young members of the international collaborations presented the latest developments of gaseous detectors, the current studies on radiation hardness of different types of devices, the performance of the newly upgraded detectors installed at the LHC, the requirements imposed by several physics measurements on the design of the corresponding detector systems, as well as the specific challenges for trackers with low material budget to minimize the impact on the trajectory and energy of the particles traversing them.
Not only LHC experiments were represented, but also several future fixed-target experiments at CERN, as well as e.g. Mu3e at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland and Belle II at the SuperKEKB accelerator complex in Japan. “For future experiments, the studies on radiation hardness and aging of different materials and devices are of extreme importance”, explains Prof. Masetti. As in all previous editions, also this year’s program was planned to give early career researchers ample occasion to participate in the discussion with the experts in the fields on which they are working.