1. Identifying strange particles & determining their properties in the ATLAS experiment
People

2. Particles in ATLAS
In a particle collision in ATLAS, a large number of particles are produced. Which are they, and how are they constructed?

3. Many are constructed of quarks and antiquarks

4. Quarks make up the Hadrons
Baryons
- made up of 3 quarks
eg protons & neutrons
Mesons
- made up of 2 quarks
eg pions & kaons

5. There are also leptons
……Which also have their antiparticles but no sub structure – they are elementary

6. Force carriers
The forces that particles experience arise from exchange of force carriers
- g photons for electromagnetic forces
- g gluons for the strong force between quarks
- W & Z for the weak force which explains things like b decay & nuclear reactions in stars

7. What evidence do we have for this?
Physicists have designed and carried out experiments with:
- Cosmic rays
Particles accelerated in particle laboratories
Using more and more sophisticated particle detectors

8. The bubble chamber has been a very useful detector to visualise particle collisions and particle decays.
A charged particle passing through the (superheated) liquid causes the liquid to boil along their paths.
A magnetic field causes the particles to bend.

9. Classical bubble chamber image
The observation of a short-lived
neutral kaon in a bubble chamber

10. Modern detectors are very complex and rely on advanced electronics & computer technology
½% of the ATLAS members

11. Detecting particles
Which particles can we detect – are there any we can’t ?
How do we find their
- charge
- momentum
- energy ?
What characteristics do we look for to identify which particle it is? 11

12. What are the principles used?
Ionisation of a medium to show the paths of charged particles
Magnetic fields to exert forces on charged particles and so bend their paths – to identify charge and enable momentum to be calculated
Absorbing materials to stop particles and so enable energy to be calculated

13. Detector homework GOALS: To learn more about detectors and the
characteristics of particle paths in them
To make some observations and measurements

14. PREPARATION Explore the physics of the ATLAS detector at:
Click on “multimedia” and then “how atlas works” and “animated clips”
Particularly Episode2:
Construction of ATLAS in 3 minutes:
Click on “e-tours” and look at these too.
Study “Physics with ATLAS” report on the Learning with ATLAS portal.

15. Download the Minerva software at
Read through the introduction and, using the Minerva help and instructions pdf ,
work through the 5 tutorial examples.

16. Strange Particle event files
There are four event files on the Minerva event location for the Strange Particle explorations, each containing 20 event files with 25 events in each.
Choose one of the files
Lambda 0.9 TeV (real collision data)
Lambda MC 0.9 TeV (simulated event data)
V0 0.9 TeV (real collision data)
V0 MC 0.9 TeV (simulated event data)

17. Student feed back Which particles can we detect?
Which characteristics do we look for?
How are the particles detected?

18. Which particles can we detect – are there any we can’t ?
Most particles can be detected by various sections of a modern detector
Neutrinos have no charge and very little mass and rarely interact with matter – we detect their presence only by noting “missing” energy & momentum in collisions
Typical detector parts

19. What characteristics do we look for in the particle tracks to identify which particle it is?
Charged particles, like electrons & positrons, leave tracks in the tracking chamber (where magnetic fields are also applied to enable momentum measurement) and deposit all of their energy in the electromagnetic calorimeter, where it can be measured.
Neutral particles, like a photon, can deposit energy in the electromagnetic calorimeter, but leave no track in the tracking chamber

20. …………….
Charged particles, consisting of quarks, like protons, leave tracks in the tracking chamber (where a magnetic field is also applied to enable momentum measurement) and deposit their energy in the hadronic calorimeter, where it can be measured.
Neutral particles, consisting of quarks, like neutrons, also deposit energy in the hadronic calorimeter, but leave no track in the tracking chamber
Muons pass through all the detector layers, leaving tracks, and depositing very small amounts of energy in all calorimeters. In the muon spectrometer, a large magnetic field is applied which enables momentum measurement.

21. Interactions of particles with the detectors - Summary
n leaves no track at all

22. The particle trajectory and charge
Tracking devices reveal the paths of electrically charged particles through the trails they leave behind. When particles pass through the detector material, they ionise the atoms of the material. The ionised atoms give rise to a feeble electric current.
Most modern tracking devices produce tiny electrical signals that can be recorded as computer data. A computer program then reconstructs the patterns of tracks recorded by the detector, and displays them on a screen.
The charge on a particle is determined by the curvature of its path in a magnetic field

23. Motion of charged particle in magnetic fields
The direction of the force on the particle is determined by Fleming’s Left hand Rule:
The current direction is the direction
in which a POSITIVE charge is travelling.
For a negative charge, this direction is reversed, which reverses the force direction

24. This force provides a centripetal force from which we can deduce particle momentum
F = Bqv
F = mv2 / r
➱ mv2 / r = Bqv
and momentum
P = mv = Bqr
Hence a particle’s momentum can be calculated from the radius of curvature of its

25. How do we find the particle - energy?
A calorimeter measures the energy lost by a particle that goes through it. It is usually designed to entirely ‘absorb’ all of the particles coming from a collision, forcing them to deposit all of their energy within the detector.
Calorimeters typically consist of layers of ‘absorbing’ high–density material (lead or steel) interleaved with layers of ‘active’ medium such as a scintillator. .

26. Electromagnetic calorimeters measure the energy of electrons and photons as they interact with the electrically charged particles inside matter.
The high energy e- interacts with the absorbing
material, producing a shower of a large number of low energy e-, e+, g. The numerous low energy particles pass into the active material, ionising atoms. The created e- are attracted towards copper electrodes, where the charge is measured. From this, the original energy of the high energy e- can be calculated e-
High energy e- e- e+ g
Hadronic calorimeters sample the energy of hadrons (particles containing quarks, such as protons and neutrons) as they interact with atomic nuclei
The high energy p interacts with an atomic nucleus in the absorbing plates, leading to a shower of particles. These particles enter a scintillating material, causing it to radiate light. Long fibres carry the light to devices where the intensity is measured and converted to an electric current, from which the energy of the incoming proton is measured.
High energy p p p

27. Gather evidence from observation
A K0 particle produced in a proton-proton collision,
and decaying in the Inner Detector of ATLAS

28. K0 particle features Features to determine The mass The lifetime
Its decay

29. Working in groups
On the Minerva website
click on masterclass resources and scroll down to computer set up. Choose a suitable version (depending on class size) and download the sets of events – click save, then right click on saved file and extract all (from the zip file)
The Strange Particle event files - the K0 and L0 event files - are presently being uploaded, and MINERVA is being modified for this scenario.
Locate the file atlantis.jar inside the AtlantisJavaMinerva folder. Double click this file and MINERVA will begin, as long as you have a recent version of Java installed, version 1.5 or later. If you need Java installing please go to and download the software from the website. The default events are events which are shown in the introductory slides. To display the events of a given group, go to File (upper left corner of the right panel), then click on Read Events Locally, select the minerva file from where you have saved it, select the events folder and then the group you want to display, and click Open.

30. …….
Print off the Instructions for Atlantis, Summary sheet and Overview sheet in the paperwork section on this page.
Each group takes a sample of 25 events from the Minerva web site and identifies the events within this set that possibly show the decay of a K0 particle
For each such event, calculate the invariant mass of the K0 particle and determine its lifetime

31. Exploration hints
Preparation of the event display (Data tab, InDet tab and Cuts tab might already be set at start-up)
“Data” tab
Click “Data” tab and under “Status”, then “InDet” and tick “Track Collection”, “Space Point” and “RecVertex”.
“InDet” tab
Make the collision point (primary vertex) and the decay points (secondary vertices) well visible by clicking on “InDet” tab, then “RecVertex” and set the “Symbol size” to 7. Tick “Force symb” to see vertex also on top display.

32. Exploration hints cont.
“Cuts” tab
Set pT to > 0.5 GeV (pT is the momentum in the direction at right angle to the colliding beams). Tick the box, and highlight the number. Enter the new number and do “Return”. This removes quite a few tracks and makes it easier to explore the event.
Set z0 < 20 cm (z0 is the z coordinate of the primary vertex and should be rather close to 0) and d0Loose to < 4 cm (d0 is the distance the track misses the primary vertex)
The d0 cut can be used during the exploration of the event. Normally require d0> 0.5 mm. This focuses the interest on the particles from secondary vertices. Note that this cut can sometimes also remove a track from the secondary vertex. By removing the cut, all the tracks from the primary vertex are also seen.

33. Exploration hints cont.
Use both display projections to inspect primary and secondary vertices close to the collision point, typically within 40 cm from the collision point. Use the zoom facility to focus on that part of the detector. Use the information from both views as some tracks and vertices are easier to observe in one of the views. Sometimes the vertices are somewhat displaced from the real vertex. The best is to complement the display with your own pattern recognition capacity
During the exploration of the event, it is useful to switch from including and excluding the d0 cut to see tracks that come from the primary and the secondary vertex respectively.

34. Special relativity High energies, several GeV per particle
High speed, close to c, speed of light
Need to use Special relativity
Albert Einstein 1905
Important contributions from Hendrik Lorentz and Henri Poincaré

35. What is invariant mass??
The invariant mass, is a characteristic of the total energy and momentum of a system of particles.
It is the same in all frames of reference – it is invariant.
The invariant mass is the mass of the decaying particle.

36. In general…..using SI units…
E2 = p2c2 + m2c4
where m is the invariant mass or just mass.
Energy and momentum must be conserved when the K0 particle decays into a p+ and a p- .
Then :
E = Ep+ + Ep- and p = pp+ + pp-
remembering that p is a vector quantity!
Then mK can be calculated: m2 = E2 - p2c2 c4

37. Units
Particle physicists work with less familiar units that simplify the equation:
E2 = p m2
P is measured in GeV/c
(often just called GeV in
the software)
m is measured in Gev/c2
E is measured in GeV
1 eV = energy gained by charged particle accelerated through a voltage of 1V
1 eV = x J
1 GeV = 109 eV
1 TeV = 1012 eV

38. m2 = E2 - p2 Using these units… m comes out in in Gev/c2 when
p is measured
in GeV/c
E is measured
in GeV &

39. Once you have identified a K0 p+ + p- event…
Click on “pick” at the top of the GUI box of the software, then click on the two pion tracks one after the other
The three components of the momentum will be displayed.
Calculate the invariant mass of the original K0 particle in each case:
mK = [ (Ep+ + Ep-)2 - (px p+ + px p-)2 - (py p+ + py p-)2
- (pz p+ + pz p-)2 ]1/2
An excel spread sheet could be designed to do this

40. Estimating the K0 mass
Explore the K0 events, and determine the mass from the momenta of the two pions.
Repeat it for each K0 particle
Make a histogram of the measured values, and determine the average mass of the K0.
Estimate the uncertainty.

41. The lifetime Most particles are unstable.
How long they live depends both on their lifetime and on their speed relative to the observer, that is us.
The lifetime we observe is the particle lifetime at rest multiplied with the gamma factor (also called the Lorentz factor)
The gamma factor, g = 1/(1-v2/c2)1/2
The gamma (or Lorentz) factor shows up ”everywhere” in special relativity.

42. Estimating the lifetime
Explore the K0 events, and determine the decay distance, the distance from the collision point to the decay point.
Determine the speed of the K0 particle
It is often rather close to c, the speed of light.
Determine the lifetime of each K0 particle, divided by the gamma factor
Make a histogram of the measured values, and determine the lifetime of the K0.

43. The exponential decrease of the measured lifetime
The measured lifetime of a particle follows an exponential curve given by:
N(t) = No e-t/t
Which describes the number of particles found at times t for a lifetime of t. t is the measured lifetime divided with gamma, the Lorentz factor.
Plotting the number of measured particles with a lifetime t on a logarithmic plot makes it rather easy to determine the particle lifetime.
However, a complication is that the detection efficiency varies as a function of time, and that has to be corrected for.
Without corrections, an average value of the measured lifetimes give an approximate value (order of magnitude) of the lifetime.

44. Collating and discussing results
Groups come back together and tabulate values of mass and lifetimes calculated for the K0 particles
A histogram of frequency against mass is plotted
A histogram of frequency against lifetime is plotted
Discussion of whether the K0 is positively identified and to what accuracy

45. Discussion of measurement technique
The K0 particle decay can be “seen” in the detector
The decay of very shortlived particles can not be seen in the detector
Can the same technique still be used?
Which complications could there be to use the technique for “invisible”, very shortlived particles?

46. Discussion of the results
What is your best estimate of the mass of the K0 particle?
What could the uncertainty be due to?
What is your best estimate of the lifetime of the K0 particle?
Discuss ways to determine the lifetime more correctly and more precisely.
How far would the K0 particle typically move if the gamma factor is 1?

47. K0 particle and antiparticle
The K0 particle and the K0 antiparticle are different particles
The K0 is composed of an s quark and a u quark
The K0 (the anti K0) is composed of an s quark and an u quark
The K0 and the K0 are different particles as they are composed of different quarks

48. Lifetime reconstruction