LHC (ATLAS)

Part of Experimental Particle Physics

The ATLAS group at the University of Pittsburgh consists of faculty members Boudreau, Cleland (emeritus), Mueller, Paolone, and Savinov. Our involvement in ATLAS is a long-term commitment with potentially spectacular physics results to be observed in the near future. This experiment will study an energy regime never before investigated. We have just completed a important component of the trigger electronics. ATLAS is now in its fifth year of construction. The detectors are in various stages of completion, and much effort is now being directed to integration issues as well as to installation and commissioning questions. The installation and integration of our components with the other systems in the experiment will be one of our major projects for the coming year.

The present main efforts of our group are in ATLAS electronics and core software/simulations. The ATLAS electronics commitment of Cleland, Paolone, and Savinov is centered on the electromagnetic liquid ionization calorimetry, with particular emphasis on the interface between the front end electronics and the Level 1 Trigger interface. The University of Pittsburgh group is responsible for two components in the electronic chain - the analog summing daughterboards, which are located on the front end board, and the receiver/monitor system which will be installed in the underground counting room. The Layer Sum Boards are complete and are being installed. The receiver system is the interface between all of the Liquid Argon and Tile calorimeters in ATLAS and the Level 1 Trigger System. It will set the final ET scale for all trigger towers, form trigger towers involving different calorimeters, map the trigger towers in the order required by Level 1 and allow monitoring of the analog trigger tower signals. The installation and commissioning of the receiver/monitor system is our near term priority.

Boudreau and Mueller have been contributing at a high level to the ATLAS experiment in the area of core software and simulation. The complete ATLAS detector has been described in software for both simulation and reconstruction and used in a recent high-profile simulation exercise. It will now be crucial to the commissioning of the ATLAS detector. With the detector description task nearing completion, both have taken on the simulation of the liquid argon calorimeter, and are placing the main emphasis on the commissioning of fast shower parameterization, a critical component of the simulation.
See links:
• https://edms.cern.ch/file347184/3/receiver.ps
• http://atlas-physics.phyast.pitt.edu/atlas