sPHENIX HCal discussion

[Emma Grace McLaughlin <egm2153 AT columbia.edu>]

Hi all,

I am planning to submit the following abstract for DNP 2022 on HCAL calibration studies. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Title: Single particle energy scale calibration of the sPHENIX hadronic calorimeters

The sPHENIX detector, which will begin collecting data at RHIC starting in 2023, contains a three-layer calorimetry system, including two layers of hadronic calorimetry. These calorimeters will be essential in achieving precise jet measurements for probing the microscopic properties of the quark-gluon plasma. To extract useful data from these calorimeters, their energy scales must be well-calibrated as well as be checked for changes in calibration during sPHENIX run periods. One possible method for providing both absolute and relative calibration would be to use hadron showers from isolated single particles from p+p collisions. This talk will first discuss challenges facing a single particle energy scale calibration, most notably the rate of high-energy isolated single particle tracks that deposit a majority of their energy into a single or small range of hadronic calorimeter towers, and propose methods of conducting this single particle calibration from Run-2 p+p  sPHENIX data. Results from these methods on simulation data of p+p runs in the sPHENIX geometry using PYTHIA v.8 and GEANT4 will be presented. 

Best,

Emma McLaughlin