sPHENIX is a new detector at RHIC.

["Huang, Jin" <jhuang AT bnl.gov>]

Dear Collaborators,

 

After a few months of delay, we received the IEEE TNS review report on the revised calorimeter prototype-2 long paper. The full report is appended below.

 

There are two positive reviews with minor actionable comments. However, we do have a disagreement with a 3rd reviewer on the appropriateness of statistical tests on empirical parameterizations, and a discrepancy on the roles of simulation with the associate editor. As a result, a major revision was requested by the editor and we were encouraged to resubmit in five weeks.

 

After brief discussion with calorimeter group leaders, we plan to address these review comments best we can, and resubmit with a letter to the editors to explaining our view points on the discrepancies. The editing will be performed on two living documents:

 

·       The manuscript will be updated on OverLeaf: https://www.overleaf.com/5093111kyqrrb

·       The review comment and response will be on Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ge_Q2GljLSXOkH_FV-rP21aJJetFMN0zYUk5ZmYVYYA/edit?usp=sharing

 

Archive for the past discussions on this paper can be found on the wiki (https://wiki.bnl.gov/sPHENIX/index.php/T-1044_publication#Paper_submission ). We will keep everyone posted on the status of the paper. Question and suggestion will be welcomed too.

 

Best regards,

 

The 2016 T-1044 paper committee

(Abhisek, Jin, Megan, Ron, and Virginia)

 

 

______________________________

 

Jin HUANG

 

Associate Physicist

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Physics Department, Bldg 510 C

Upton, NY 11973-5000

 

Office: 631-344-5898

Cell:   757-604-9946

______________________________

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science [mailto:onbehalfof AT manuscriptcentral.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2018 11:24 AM
To: Huang, Jin <jhuang AT bnl.gov>
Cc: maria.grazia.pia AT cern.ch
Subject: Manuscript TNS-00674-2017 reviews

 

Dear Dr. Huang:

 

The reviews of your manuscript,

 

Design and Beam Test Results for the sPHENIX Electromagnetic and Hadronic Calorimeter Prototypes (No. TNS-00674-2017),

 

have been received and are attached below. The reviewers and editors felt that a number of major issues needed to be addressed in your paper before it would be acceptable for publication.  Thus we will not be able to consider it further for publication in its current form.

 

However, because we believe the work has merit, we invite you to consider submitting a revised manuscript that takes all the reviewers' and Editors’ comments into consideration. It would be given a new Manuscript ID and be fully reviewed again.

 

If you choose to resubmit, please send the reworked manuscript no later than 5 weeks from today, but preferably as soon as possible.  You can use the following link to start your resubmission without logging in:

 

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https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tns-ieee?URL_MASK=b8fec39e1d3c417786d658675da874c6

 

Or you can resubmit by accessing your Author Center, going to the "manuscripts with decisions" queue, and then choosing the "submit a resubmission" option. Your manuscript will receive a new ID, but using the resubmission option will automatically link your resubmission to the previous version; please do not create an entirely new submission.

 

With your resubmission, you must provide a point-by-point response detailing the changes you have made to address the reviewers' concerns and the changes you made to address the editors' comments in Step 1, "view and respond." Also highlight on your revised manuscript all the changes you have made in response to the reviewers’ and editors' comments. Failure to provide a clear list of the changes and a copy of the manuscript with the changes highlighted may result in the rejection of your manuscript. If you disagree with any of the reviewers' recommendations, please make sure that you include a detailed discussion of why you disagree in the response box.

 

In Step 6 you should delete any obsolete, original submission files (e.g., the manuscript file) and upload your new manuscript. Then click Save and Continue, and complete the other steps for resubmission

 

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I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

Sincerely,

Maria Grazia Pia

maria.grazia.pia AT cern.ch

 

Reviewers' Comments

 

Reviewer: 1

 

Comments and suggestions for the author

Interesting paper, well done.

 

Reviewer: 2

 

Comments and suggestions for the author

Since most of the the suggestions about the suitable statistical methods for the empirical part of the paper have not been considered, I cannot change my previous opinion about this aspect of the paper.

 

Specifically:

- When you write "When high statistical data is used in the fit, the parametrization is expected to fail in describing this data at high accuracy and to produce a poor p-value", what do "high statistical data" and "poor p-value" mean?   

 

I wonder if "...the parametrization is expected to fail in describing this data..." and "the simulation curve are expected to statistical significantly deviate from high precision data...", how can you conclude that "we can describe, understand and quantify the general trend of these data"?

 

 

Reviewer: 3

 

Comments and suggestions for the author

Dear authors, the paper summarizes nicely the results of the test beam and should be published. Please find below my few comments.

 

General questions:

 

1) The SiPM readout of the EMCal is upstream of the beam. Is this also planned for the final module? Did you discover events in which a SiPM was hit directly by a beam particle? Is this going to be a problem with the real detector in higher luminosity data-taking?

 

2) At the first time when you mention the unfolding of the beam momentum spread please explain in more detail how you do how you do the unfolding.

 

3) Section VII E: If I understand correctly, you sort the events in three inclusive categories, where the FULL category includes simply all events. When reading the text, I was first expecting exclusive categories. Why did you make them inclusive?

In any case, it would be easier to understand for the reader, if you include the word 'inclusive' in the text on p.17, right column, l.31: "... sorted into three inclusive categories, depending on..."

 

MA:

 

1) Section I and II:

You spend a lot of text explaining in detail how the three parts of the detector are designed. However, Fig. 1 is not very helpful for the understanding the detailed structure, e.g. the exact tilt of the inner HCal remained unclear to me until I discovered Fig. 18.

I would like to see a picture containing the structure as Fig. 18 also in the beginning. It could be in addition to Fig. 1, or you could modify Fig. 1.

Fig. 2 would be easier to understand if not two parts were drawn, but one 3D figure, at best also containing the light guide, and an arrow indicating the beam direction.

 

2) 4) p.16 left column, l.36: It remains unclear to me, to which ADC timing samples you refer here: it would help if you refer to the section in which you describe these samples.

 

3) p.16 right column, l.53 and caption of Fig. 28, as well as p.19 left column, l.25 and caption of  Fig. 31: you write in both cases in the text and in the caption that the lower panel shows the ratio of reconstructed energy and the fits, which sounds like it is the ratio of reco energy/fit. But in both cases the axis label says: Measured Energy / Input Energy - please adjust either the text or the axis labels.

 

MI:

 

1) p.11, left column, l.51: with the follow four -> with the following four

 

2) p.13, left column, l.58: This longitudinal position dependence scintillation light yield is used -> This longitudinal position dependent scintillation light yield is used

 

3) p.15 left column, l.43: between total number of indent hadron and -> between the total number of indent hadrons and

 

4) p.16 right column, l.42, 46, p.18 right column, l.53, 55, 57: please add the % also after the first number (as you also did in the conclusion), the % is a part of the number and should go with each number

 

5) p.18 right column, l.59: these fit -> these fits

 

 

OP:

 

1) p.3, right column, l.55: causing the asymmetry -> causing an asymmetry

 

2) Fig. 7: Tile fibre patterns are seen on top -> Tile fibre patterns are shown on top

 

3) p.15 left column, l.21 and l.38: for the beam energies larger than ... -> for beam energies above ...

 

4) p.16 left column, l.26: large space between 'Section' and 'VI'

 

5) p.16 right column, l.50: energy -> energies

 

 

Editor's Comments

 

Editor: Pia, Maria Grazia

Comments to the Author:

I accumulated a large backlog of work due to health problems in November-December; I apologize for my delay in processing this manuscript.

 

The reviewers have expressed some questions and concerns regarding this new version; one of them observed that recommendations concerning the statistical data analysis issued in the previous review cycle have not been addressed (nor have been refuted on technical grounds).

 

The parts of the paper concerning the simulation of the detector are still weak. "Excellent agreement" is stated in the conclusions between the test beam results and GEANT4-based simulation, but no statistical data analysis is reported in support to such a statement. Reference to undocumented recommendation of physics configurations in a web page [31] is inappropriate for an archival journal publication. Reference [32] concerns a much earlier version of Geant4 than that used in the manuscript: it cannot be taken for granted that its conclusions are still pertinent to the Geant4 version used in this manuscript. One of the pre-packaged PhysicsLists it reports as best reproducing the experimental results is even no longer available in Geant4. Adequate documentation of the evolution of Geant4 should be provided to assess the pertinence of the results reported in this reference to the simulation environment of the manuscript.

 

Both reference [32] and [33] report some inconsistencies between measured and simulated observables, which are not discussed in the manuscript, which instead claims "excellent agreement" between test beam measurements and simulation: this is a strong statement, which would deserve proper clarification of the differences with respect to results previously reported by other experimental groups. The manuscript does not discuss either the pertinence of the results reported in [32] and [33] regarding the experimental scenario of the manuscript (beam characteristics, detector materials, experimental observables etc.).

 

The authors' response refers to the slides of an internal Geant4 group meeting, where work in progress was presented in 2014, as a "source of concerns" regarding a Geant4 pre-packaged physics configuration identified as FTFP_BERT: such a reference is not appropriate in the context of publication in a scholarly journal, where published validation results rather than informal slides of an internal group meeting are expected as the foundation of a detector simulation.

 

Page 16, left column, lines 51-52, "the expected muon component in the beam is simulated and statistically subtracted from the cluster energy spectrum": this procedure is not epistemologically sound, as the paper does not document the validation of muon simulation (either based on independent data or on proper references to the literature) prior to subtracting the simulated muon component.

 

Section VII-C hints again to using a Geant4-based simulation of muons for calibration purpose without documenting the validity of the simulation.

 

Different values of the Birks constant appear to be used in the paper in the context of optimizing the match between measurements and simulation, when different simulation settings are used; it is unclear whether a univocal value has been determined, or different values are used as free calibration parameters associated with different physics  settings in the simulation.

 

Both the manuscript and the authors' response to the previous review report present the simulation component of the manuscript as preliminary: this part looks more appropriate for a conference paper than for an archival journal publication, where firm results are expected, while the parts documenting the experimental performance of the detector appear mature for publication, once a few related issues raised by the reviewers are addressed. The authors may want to consider reshaping the present paper to cover the experimental performance of the detector only and postponing the publication of simulation results in a future paper, once they have reached a mature stage.

 

Senior Editor's Comments

 

 

D9