sPHENIX HCal discussion

[Sebastian Franci Vazquez-Torres <Sebastian.Vazqueztorres AT Colorado.EDU>]

Hello sPHENIX HCAL collaborators,

My name is Sebastian Vazquez, I am part of the Nagle group at CU Boulder and I'd like to submit the following abstract to the Conference Experience for Undergraduates at DNP. I welcome all comments and suggestions. The deadline for submission is August 1, but I would like to submit it by the end of next week.

Thank you,

Sebastian

Abstract:

The sPHENIX detector at  RHIC will contain an electromagnetic and a hadronic calorimeter used for the detection of particles ejected in jets from heavy ion collisions. The  hadronic calorimeter will be composed of layers of steel plates that are alternated with with plastic scintillators. A diffusive coating was applied to the scintillator panels to improve reflection and increase sensitivity. Within the scintillator panels, wavelength shifting fiber optic cables were embedded and coupled to silicon photo multipliers (SiPMs). The signal from the SiPMs passed through a preamp that shaped and amplified the signal before passing it to a analogue to digital converter (ADC) from which the energy deposited in the scintillator was calculated. With the test setup at the University of Colorado at Boulder, we explored the correlation between the presence and density of the diffusive coating and the uniformity of light output within the panels. We prototyped various SiPM mounting systems and characterized the performance of the preamps with the aim of optimizing light collection, panel response sensitivity, and signal clarity.