NSF-BSF: Collaborative Research: Development of Very Radiation Hard Zero Degree Calorimeters for the LHC

位于瑞士的欧洲核子研究中心（CERN）实验室的大型强子对撞机（LHC）正在进行升级，以使束流碰撞的次数比LHC的设计值增加十倍。增加的辐射会损坏许多现有的探测器，因此必须设计和建造新的探测器。该奖项支持不同原型设计的开发，经过广泛的测试，最佳设计将成为ATLAS和CMS实验的通用设计。ATLAS和CMS实验是目前大型强子对撞机上最大的两个实验。原型机将在以色列的Soreq核研究中心和伊利诺伊州的费米国家加速器实验室进行测试。该项目有一个强有力的计划，让来自不同社区的本科生参与这些新探测器的开发。在拟议的活动中发展的技术可应用于其他科学领域，例如放射肿瘤学和空间科学。为了充分利用大型强子对撞机独特的利用强子电磁场产生的高能光子的能力，以及前所未有的利用这些光子探测到的低x粒子的能力，实验需要Zero - Degree calororimeters （zdc）。zdc注定要在下一次长时间关闭后开始的高亮度时代在LHC上使用。在高亮度时代，亮度将超过7x10^34 /cm^2/秒，因此zdc必须具有极高的辐射强度。zdc用于识别重离子碰撞中的反应面方向，是测量重离子和p-p碰撞中超外围碰撞的重要探测器。光子-光子和光子-核相互作用允许观测极其罕见的过程，例如光对光的散射，这对新的未观察到的物理过程具有潜在的敏感性，并提供了一个干净的穿透性探测核。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland is being upgraded to increase the number of beam collisions by a factor of ten beyond the LHC's design value. The increased radiation will damage many of the existing detectors, so new detectors have to be designed and built. This award supports the development of different prototype designs and, after extensive testing, the best design will become the common design for both the ATLAS and CMS experiments. The ATLAS and CMS experiments are the two largest experiments currently mounted at the LHC. The prototypes will be tested at the Soreq Nuclear Research Center in Israel and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. The project has a robust plan in place to engage undergraduate students from a diverse community to participate in the development of these new detectors. The technology developed in the proposed activities may have applications in other areas of science such as radiation oncology and space science.To take full advantage of the LHC, with its unique access to high energy photons caused by the electromagnetic fields of the passing hadrons, and unprecedented access to low-x partons probed by these photons, the experiments need Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs). The ZDCs are destined to be used at the LHC during the high luminosity era which starts after the next Long Shutdown. Luminosities will exceed 7x10^34 /cm^2/sec in the high luminosity era and so the ZDCs must be extraordinarily radiation hard. ZDCs are needed to identify the reaction plane orientation in a heavy ion collision and are an essential detector for measuring ultra-peripheral collisions in heavy ion and p-p collisions. The photon-photon and photon-nucleus interactions allow observations of extremely rare processes, such as light-by-light scattering, which are potentially sensitive to new unobserved physics processes and provide a clean penetrating probe of the nucleus.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.