sPHENIX HCal discussion

[Megan Connors <meganeconnors AT gmail.com>]

Dear all,

An undergrad at GSU, Jacob Tutterow, who has worked with us since we started testing tiles and is now helping with some calibration studies, would like to submit the following poster abstract to the CEU program at the DNP. Comments before Tuesday's Aug 2nd deadline are appreciated.

Thanks,

Megan 

Aging and Calibration Studies of sPHENIX Hadronic Calorimeter Scintillating Tiles

sPHENIX will soon probe the hot, dense state of nuclear matter known as
Quark-Gluon Plasma at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The sPHENIX Hadronic
Calorimeter (HCal) measures the energies of incoming particles from the collisions. The
HCal achieves this with scintillating tiles that produce light when struck by a particle.
The light is then routed to an SiPM, and digitized. To calibrate the detector, the tiles
were tested using cosmic rays to determine the performance characteristics. We are
continuing to test a small selection of these scintillating tiles to determine the aging
characteristics of their performance. Calibrations will also be monitored and adjusted
while sPHENIX is collecting data, as it is expected that the SiPMs in the detector will
suffer from radiation damage. There are currently two methods being considered; one is
to continue to take cosmic ray data, and the other is to shine an LED on the tiles to see
any change in performance. Comparisons of those two methods are currently
underway. This poster will present the results of these studies and the results of the
aging tests.