The MoEDAL Experiment

A Progress Report

The MoEDAL Experiment

A Progress Report

James L Pinfold, University of AlbertaLHCC Open Session, March 2012

James L Pinfold, University of AlbertaLHCC Open Session, March 2012

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Menu The MoEDAL Experiment Intro

The MoEDAL “TDR” Detector The Physics Program

Progress since last report MoEDAL Collaboration – new faces The Test Array deployment The TimePix pixel chip test

deployment Testing and calibrating the plastic The Very High Charge Catcher, plans GEANT4 simulation of plastic NTDs

Conclusion & Timescale2

The The MoEDALMoEDAL Detector Detector

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The MoEDAL TDR Detector

•MoEDAL will be the largest Nuclear Track Detector (NTDs) array ever deployed (250 sqm) at an accelerator•NTDs are passive detectors that don’t need extensive

support structures or HV, gas, electronic readout or trigger & are insensitive to relativistic SM particles•Tracks are revealed as conical etch pits by controlled

etching of the NTD with charge resolution ~0.05e and spatial resolution ~ 10 microns/pit

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The TimePix Radiation Monitor

• Timepix (MediPix) chips will be used to measure the radiation/spallation background in real-time

• The TimePix chip pixels are instrumented with an amp. + comparator + counter + timer (allows TOT E- measurement)

• The TimePix chip is a petite electronic bubble chamber

The Timepix chip

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The MoEDAL Physics Program•Search for magnetic Monopole/Dyon (a singly charged relativistic monopole has ionization ~4700n times that of a MIP) - with mass up to ~7 TeV and magnetic charge

(ng) of up to n=8-9•Search for exotic, massive (pseudo-)stable, single or

multiply charged particles (SMPs) with Z/ ≥ 5,with mass up to 7 TeV and charge as high as ~400, for example:• Charged black hole remnants from ADD models of LEDs• Universal Extra dimensions - KK-particles• Higgs bosons: H++ (L-R symmetric models) & Ho N-Nbar• R-hadrons (Split SUSY, GMSB, SUSY5D)• Very heavy stable SUSY particles (sleptons, etc.)• Technibaryons & Mirror fermions• Q-balls (extended balls of electric charge), Quirks, etcIJMPA PAPER ON THE PHYSICS O

F MoEDAL IS UNDER

IJMPA PAPER ON THE PHYSICS O

F MoEDAL IS UNDER

PREPARATION

PREPARATION

MoEDAL “Prep. For Physics W

orkshop” PLANNED FOR JUNE

MoEDAL “Prep. For Physics W

orkshop” PLANNED FOR JUNE

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• The main LHC detectors are optimized for the detection of singly (electrically) charged (or neutral) particles (Z/~1) moving near to the speed of light ( > ~0.5)

• Typically a largish statistical sample is needed to establish a signal

• MoEDAL is designed to detect charged particles, with effective or actual Z/ > 5.

• As it has no trigger/ electronics slowly moving ( < ~0.5) particles are no problem

• One candidate event is enough to establish the signal

(no Standard Model backgrounds)

ATLAS+CMS MoEDAL

MoEDAL is complementary to the main LHC experiments and expands the physics reach of LHC

MoEDAL’s Complementarity

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MoEDAL Collaboration – Increases• The University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta (CANADA) - J. L. Pinfold

(spokesman), Marc de Montigny, R. Soluk• The Physics Dept., University of Bologna and INFN Bologna (ITALY) - S.

Cecchini, G. Giacomelli, M. Giorgini, L. Patrizii, G. Sirri, V. Togo• CERN, Geneva (SWITZERLAND) – M. Campbell, D. Lacarrere, A. de Roeck• Université de Genéve – A. Katre, Phillipe Mermod.• Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics (IEAP), CTU, Prague,

(CZECH REPUBLIC J. Jakubec, M. Platkevic, S. Pospisil, Z. Vykydal.• Dept. of Physics, University of Cincinnati, Ohio (USA) - K. Kinoshita.• DESY, Hamburg (GERMANY ) - T. Hott• King’s College London (UK) - J. Ellis, M. Fairbairn, N. Mavromatos• Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts (USA) - J. Swain.• Institute for Space Sciences, P.O.Box MG-23, Ro 077125, Bucharest -

Magurele, (ROMANIA)- D. Felea, D. Hasegan, G. E. Pavalas, V. Popa

***** APPLICATIONS IN PROGRESS FROM SPAIN AND RUSSIA ***** 9

The New Faces

King’s College London

CERNUniversité de Genéve

Alberta

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• In January 2011 we installed a test array with area ~1/3 of the full “TDR” detector i.e. 80 sqm (= 8 sqm x 10) of NTDs

The MoEDAL Test Array Deployment

VELO VELO

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The TimePix Radiation Monitor Test Deployment

• In Feb. 2012 a team from the Alberta, Czech Republic & CERN groups deployed a test system of 2 TimePix pixel detectors - the final system to consist of ~10 chips

One of the two TimePix pixel chips deployed

The DAQ system housed in the D2 Barrack (IP8)

The online readout from the Chip showing radiation field

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Testing & Calibrating the NTDs

• We obtained beam time at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) at BNL to calibrate the plastic with a heavy ion (Fe) beam that has energy of 1 GeV/nucleon.

• Plastic deployed in 2009 was removed in Jan. 2011 & Feb. 2012 for test etching in Bologna and calibration at the NSRL in BNL which will take place in April 2012

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The Very High Charge Catcher • The Very High Charge Catcher (VHCC) is

designed to increase the acceptance for very highly ionizing particles (eg g > 1)

• The VHCC is comprised of flexible, thin bendable, light, plastic stacks

• Each VHCC stack consists of 3 Makrofol sheets (100 m thick) encased in a Al- foil (25 m thick) envelope to inhibit fire – each stack is 0.65% RL

• Normal size of each stack will be 50 x 50 cm2 .

• The VHCC stacks can be placed in areas that were previously inaccessible or unsuitable for TDR detector stacks

The VHCC stack

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Planned VHCC Deployment

• The VHCC roughly doubles the acceptance for very highly ionizing particles.

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Simulating Track Formation in Plastic Nuclear Track Detectors

• A Project has been initiated with the GEANT4 group to provide the framework for the simulation of damage track formation in Nuclear Track Detectors

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MoEDAL Coverage (With the VHCC)

• MoEDAL acceptance for electric (left) and magnetic (right) charges, assuming a Drell-Yan pair production with 14 TeV pp collisions (From Ref. arXiv:1112.2999V2 [hep-ph] ).

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

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MoEDAL Sensitivity Compared to Other LHC Experiments

• Cross-section limits for magnetic (LEFT) and electric charge (RIGHT) (from the authors of arXiv:1112.2999V2 [hep-ph]) assuming:

– Only one MoEDAL event is required for discovery and 100 events in the other (active) LHC detectors

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The MoEDAL Timescale• First detectors ( 10 sqm of plastic) deployed in Nov. 2009)• We deployed a larger area of plastic (~80 m2) in Jan. 2011 • A NTD stack installed in 2009 was removed at this time for test

etching and for calibration at NSRL • VHCC detector concept introduced to improve acceptance

for very highly ionizing particles (ng ≥ 1 (Dec. 2011)• Test deployment of TimePix detectors in Feb. 2012• Another NTD stack installed in 2009 was removed at this time

for test etching and for calibration at NSRL • Full deployment ( ~250 sqm = 10 x 25 sqm) is planned for

the year long shutdown starting in 2012/2013. • All the test deployment stacks will be removed at this time and

analyzed, first results - for 7-8 TeV - running in 2013.• In 2014 expect to have our first “official” run to be

continued until we reach a ΣL of ≥ ~10fb-1 at 14 TeV.20