History

The present Department of the ATLAS Experiment combines two previous departments: The Department of the ATLAS Experiment and The Department of High Energy Nuclear Interactions. The reorganization took place 1st February 2008. A short history of the activities in two key experiments, i. e. in ATLAS and PHOBOS, is presented below.

The ATLAS Experiment

1980-1990

The beginning of the ATLAS experiment was preceded by the following important events:

One of the first working meetings on future hadron collider in LEP tunnel took place in CERN in 1984 [1]
Next meetings concerning physics program, the accelerator and detectors, with participation of physicists from Kraków, took place in Barcelona [2] Aachen [3] and Evian [4]
In 1987 in CERN started a dedicated program (LAA), based on Italian founds, allowing development work on new detectors for LHC

Our physicists and engineers have been involved in the development of experiments at Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) in USA and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in CERN since the late eighties. The development work on silicon detectors and front-end electronics was conducted in collaboration with the University of California, Santa Cruz (USA) and with the Institute of Physics and Nuclear Techniques (IPNT) AGH in Kraków.

1990-1995

In 1990, CERN put forward a special program for detector development for LHC, and Detector Research and Development Committee (DRDC) was formed. In this program physicists and engineers form INP PAN took part in three projects:

RD6; Integrated Transition Radiation and Tracking Detector for LHC http://greybook.cern.ch/
RD11; Embedded Architecture for Second-level Triggering (EAST) http://greybook.cern.ch/
RD20; Development of High Resolution Silicon Strip Detectors for Experiments at High Luminosity at LHC http://greybook.cern.ch/

At the early nineties, based on these projects [5], first working groups were formed to prepare future LHC experiments. Kraków group became a member of EAGLE Collaboration, which submitted the letter of intent in 1992, presented at conference in Evian [6].

As a result of discussions with members of CERN LHC Experiments Committee (LHCC) and other experimental groups, the EAGLE Collaboration decided to cooperate with the ASCOT group. A combined effort described the present conception of the spectrometer, and the experiment was named ATLAS. The Letter of Intent was published in 1992 [7].

ATLAS Technical Proposal was submitted in 1994 [8], and in the same year, based on positive LHCC opinion, was approved for construction by CERN directors.

1995-1999

In 1995, the ATLAS Memorandum of Understanding - MoU was established. According to MoU Kraków Group was obligated to participate in activities on:

Power supply system of the SCT detector
Power supply and control systems of TRT detector
Construction of Trigger and DAQ system.

The MoU, related also to the financial cost of the project, was signed by the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research. However, the tasks specified in MoU do not included our full contribution to ATLAS. Additionally we were involved in the following activities:

Modeling of physical processes
Design of the readout system of the SCT detector
Design of power supply system of the SCT detector
Design power supply and control systems of TRT detector
Modeling and prototyping of Trigger, DAQ and event filter (EF) system
Testing of SCT and TRT detector modules
Construction of support structures and detector cooling system

For a successful realization of all these efforts the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research gave special founds to INP PAN and IPNT AGH groups in a form of a grant (SPUB) called "Budowa aparatury detekcyjnej i przygotowanie programu fizycznego eksperymentu ATLAS przy LHC w CERN-ie".

In these years, based on designs and prototypes, a number of technical reports were prepared, Technical Design Report, which determined technical details of particular sub-systems of the ATLAS spectrometer. Reports related to activities of Kraków Groups can be found in references [9-11]. Technical Design Report also contains results based on MC simulations of the ATLAS detector obtained by personnel from our Institute [12].

2000-2005

In these years a massive production of spectrometer parts was developed, including testing and preliminary overall spectrometer integration in CERN. Personnel of our Department participated in the following activities:

Out of 100 thousands tested ABCD3T chips (each of 128 channels), used for processing signals of SCT detector, about 50 thousands correctly working chips were selected [13]
Testing facility was build and 775 hybrids circuits (each of 1536 readout channels) used in SCT detector were thermally tested (710 hybrids were accepted)
Organization of bidding process and production in Polish company Fideltronik of 594 power supply systems (each of 8 channels, 500 V) for SCT detector [14]
Conceptual design and setup in CERN of the power supply, monitoring and control prototype system for TRT detector
Testing the capability of distributed computing resources to filter experimental data in real time
The initial computer infrastructure for the simulations and data analysis of LHC experiments, integrated with the LHC Computing Grid (LCG) was built in collaboration with the Academic Computer Center CYFRONET AGH [15]

CERN, together with INP PAN and Sobon Company, designed two support structures ("Tracks") for the ATLAS experiment. The support structures were produced in Polish companies Mostostal and HTS. After shipment to CERN, both kinds of support structures were tested with heavy load (up to 1800 tons) and were installed in the ATLAS experimental hall [16].

Our Department was also actively involved in several ATLAS software development tasks, including:

Measurement of the accelerator luminosity in LHC experiments [17],
Preparation of Letter of Intent [18] for study heavy-on collisions with the ATLAS detector,
Study on new multichannel decays of Higgs boson [19, 20].

Personnel from INP PAN actively participated in works on infrastructure and integration of detectors in CERN. Particularly, we participated in construction of the cooling system, cabling, design and construction of the power supply for electronics of trigger and readout systems in the underground USA15 hall. In years 2004-2005 about 20 engineers and technicians from INP PAN were working on ATLAS detector during long-term visits to CERN.

The research and construction work on ATLAS spectrometer was supported by INP PAN and IPNT AGH as well as the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research SPUB no: 620/E-77/SPUBM/CERN/P-03/DZ 295/2000-2002 and SPUB no: 620/E-77/SPUB-M/CERN/P-03/DZ 110/2003-2005 and no 620/E-77/SPB/5.PR UE/DZ 465/2002-2004.

[1] Proceedings of ECFA-CERN Workshop on Large Hadron Collider in the LEP Tunnel, Lausanne-CERN Geneva, 21-27 March. 1984, CERN Report 84-10
[2] Proceedings of ECFA Study Week on Instrumentation Technology for High-Luminosity Hadron Colliders, Barcelona 14-21 Sept. 1989, CERN Report 89-10 (No. 1989)
[3] Proceedings of ECFA Large Hadron Collider Workshop, Aachen 4-9 Oct. 1990, CERN Report 90-10 (Dec. 1990)
[4] Proceedings of ECFA-CERN General Meeting on LHC physics and Detectors, Evian-les-Bains, 5-8 March 1992
[5] CERN Detector R&D Programme 1990-1994, summary of results, CERN/ DRDC 94-4
[6] EAGLE ...
[7] ATLAS, Letter of Intent for a General-Purpose pp Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, CERN/ LHCC/92-4 (Oct. 1992)
[8] The ATLAS Collaboration, ATLAS Technical proposal, CERN/ LHCC/ 94-43 (Dec. 1994)
[9] ATLAS Inner Detector; Technical Design Report, Reporty CERN/LHCC 97-16 i CERN/LHCC 97-17, April 1997
[10] ATLAS Trigger Performance Status Report, Report CERN/LHCC 98-15, June 1998
[11] ATLAS DAQ, EF, LVL2 and DCS Progress Report and Workplan, Report CERN/LHCC 98-16, June 1998
[12] ATLAS Detector and Physics Performance; Technical Design Report, Reports CERN/LHCC 99-14 i CERN/LHCC 99-15, May 1999
[13] C. Lacasta et al., Production Database for the ATLAS-SCT Front-end ASICs, proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Electronic for LHC Experiments, Cracow, Sep 2000. Report CERN/LHCC/2000-041, 125-129, October 2000
[14]J. Bohm, et al., Power Supply and Power Distribution System for the ATLAS Silicon Strip Detectors, Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Electronics for LHC Experiments, Stockholm, September 2001, Report CERN 2001-005, 363
[15] T. Bold et al., LHC Grid Computing Cluster at ACC Cyfronet, Annual Report INP PAN 2003, http://www.ifj.edu.pl/ANNUAL/AR2003/AR2003.html
[16] R. Cwierz et al., Support Structures for the ATLAS Spectrometer, Annual Report INP PAN 2003, http://www.ifj.edu.pl/ANNUAL/AR2003/AR2003.html
[17] D. Bocian, PhD thesis, INP PAN, 2005
[18] ATLAS Collaboration, Heavy Ion Physics with the ATLAS Detector, Letter of Intent, Report CERN/LHCC/2004-009, March 2004
[19] E. Richter-Was and T. Szymocha "The light Higgs boson decay into tau-pair: reconstruction
in different production processes",
ATLAS Note ATL-PHYS-2004-012, CERN (ATL-COM-PHYS-2004-010)
[20] E. Richter-Was, T. Szymocha and Z. Was "Why do we need higher order fully exclusive Monte
Carlo generator for Higgs boson production from heavy quark fusion at LHC?"
Physics Letters B, Volume 589, Issues 3-4, pp. 125-134, 2004 (hep-ph/0402159

Silicon Detectors Laboratory

History:

The rapid development of position sensitive silicon detectors for high energy physics has started in 1980. Members of our Institute participated in first experiments at CERN performed with such detectors (NA11/NA32).

Since that time the staff of INP actively takes part in the development of this technology and its applications in physics and other areas. The Silicon Detectors Laboratory has been established at INP in the early 90-s in cooperation with University of Mining and Metallurgy in Cracow.

Equipment:

two Alessi probe-stations with Mitutoyo microscopes, micromanipulators of Alessi and Karl Suss, Panasonic CCD camera, color monitor and moving mini-table with Mitutoyo Drive Unit; Maximum magnification 200; XY range 50mm with 10 mm step; holder diam. 15cm.
ultrasonic bonder Kulicke&Soffa 4123 with Olympus microscope
Hewlett-Packard 4284 Precision LCR Meter
Hewlett-Packard 4145 Semiconductor Parameter Analyzer
measurement setup with infrared diode for silicon detector testing
PC computers, multimeters, etc.
two stations with laminar air flow

Development works and participation in experiments:

The Silicon Detectors Laboratory enables measuring and testing of silicon detectors and related VLSI electronics which are used in high energy physics experiments and other fields. Assembly of detectors and readout electronics in modules is possible as well.

In the middle of 80-s the Cracow group took part in building of precision vertex detectors for the MARK II experiment at SLC accelerator at SLAC and for the DELPHI experiment at LEP accelerator at CERN, which stimulated the development of the Laboratory.

In the early 90-s INP researchers participated in the CERN research and development project RD-20 "Development of High Resolution Si Strip Detectors for Experiments at High Luminosity at the Large Hadron Collider". Our main task in the frame of that collaboration was to investigate the parameters of detectors and test structures irradiated with various kinds of ionizing radiation.

The achieved results helped to design the silicon tracking detector SCT (SemiConductor Tracker) for ATLAS experiment at CERN. Within ATLAS collaboration various prototypes of silicon detectors, readout electronics and hybrids have been designed and tested.

The Cracow team of the BELLE experiment at KEK-B collider in Japan is going to work here on silicon detectors for upgrading of the experiment. The cooperation has already resulted in the improvement of the Laboratory equipment.

The possibility of using position silicon detectors in crystallography, biology and medicine has been investigated recently in Institute. Currently the SUCIMA project ( Silicon Ultra fast Cameras for Electron and Gamma Sources in Medical Applications ) no. GRD 2-2002-31832 is realized in the frames of Fifth Program of European Community.

The results of investigations performed by the INP staff could be found in many publications and reports (see LIST of PUBLICATIONS).

Teaching:

Since many years prof. M. Turała and prof. A. Zalewska have dedicated lectures on silicon detector technologies and applications for physics students of the Jagiellonian University; recently also for the ones of the University of Mining and Metallurgy in Kraków and for the Silesian University in Katowice.

Alessi probe-station and LRC-meter

Micromanipulators on Alessi probe-station

Second Alessi probe-station with

CCD-camera and monitor

Kulick&Soffa ultrasonic bonder

Setup with infrared diode on granite table (350 kG of weight!)

Fragment of silicon strip detector surface - polisilicon resistors could be seen

The PHOBOS Experiment

Personnel from INP PAN, in particularly from our department, have been actively involved in PHOBOS experiment since its beginning. Physicists from INP PAN participated in design of the detector, software development, on-line experimental data taking and, at present, participate in several data analyses. The PHOBOS detector was built within years 1992-2001. During the construction phase engineers from our Institute designed almost all mechanical constructions as well as designed and built the cooling system. Most of the support structures of the PHOBOS detector were also made in our Institute. First collisions of gold ion beams in RHIC accelerator were observed in PHOBOS in June 2000. The detector finished taking data in 2005, after 6 years of running.

Physicists from our Department have been involved in the PHOBS experiment since very beginning. Our activities have included:

Performing MC simulations of the PHOBOS detector. MC simulations were first used to optimize the design of the detector and testing the reconstruction procedures and now are used to compare experimental theoretical data
Preparation, implementation and management of the geometrical description of the PHOBOS detector. The geometrical description has been used in the data processing chain, including on-line data taking, reconstruction procedures and physical analyses as well as MC simulations
Development of collision vertex reconstruction method
Measurement of identified particle p_T-spectra (at very low transverse momentum) in relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC energies
Participation in analysis of multiparticle production in heavy ion collisions
Measurements of fluctuations in the multiplicity of particles in heavy ion collisions
Participation in the analyses of collective effects
Preparation of publications

Although the PHOBOS detector stopped running, physicists are still busy analyzing large amounts of experimental data, searching for new phenomena. Extensive list of presentations and publications presenting obtained results can be found at the PHOBOS web page.