Physics potential of timing layers in future collider detectors

Abstract

The physics potential of timing layers with a few tens of pico-second resolution in the calorimeters of future collider detectors is explored. These studies show how such layers can be used for particle identification and illustrate the potential for detecting new event signatures originating from physics beyond the standard model.

Picosecond Timing-Planes for Future Collider Detectors

“…For a 100 GeV BSM particle, its TOF will exceed 30 ps out to 3 TeV, where it can be measured to ≤ 5% precision; below 1 TeV, the TOF measurement precision with be a fraction of a percent, and the mass measurement below this energy will thus be limited by the precision of the calorimetry rather than the TOF. Similar results have been discussed for hypothetical timing precision of 10 ps or better [17]; in our case ≤ 3 ps timing can already be achieved currently with our methodology.…”

“…Based on suggestions from Chekanov et al [17] that timing planes for the FCC-hh would be best co-located with the EM-CAL and HCAL detectors, and our conclusions that the most FIG. 20: Left: FCC-hh reference detector section view schematic, the forward EMCAL+HCAL is in blue in the 17-19m region.…”

“…Timing of massive jet component particles may yield timeof-flight momentum values that are useful for constraining the jet kinematics, or even more exotic phenomena such as emerging jets [15][16][17]. At the energies of future colliders, boosted jets with much higher total energies become more prevalent, and methods which are effective for jet physics in the barrel region will require revision to operate under the extreme conditions -both in the radiation environment, and in the high dynamic range required -that will obtain there.…”

Precision timing for collider-experiment-based calorimetry

“…In order to estimate the separation power between different mass hypotheses as a function of the distance between the interaction point and the first layer of the ECAL (or a timing layer to be considered later), one calculate the mass and momentum for which one can achieve a separation significance higher than 3σ (or p-value< 0.3%). If there are two particles with mass m and a reference (fixed) mass m F , respectively, the 3σ separation can be achieved for this condition [8,9].…”

“…Figure 2 shows the 3σ separation from the pion mass hypothesis (m F = m π ) using the procedure discussed in [8,9] for several values of resolution of the timing layer, ranging from 10 ps to 1 ns. The lines are shown as a function of the distance L from the interaction point and momentum p. For a 20 ps detector and a typical travel distance L ∼ 1.5 − 2 m from the production vertex to the ECAL, neutrons and protons can be separated from the According to these studies, separation of kaons from pions can be performed up to 3 GeV.…”