[en] We present a comment on the kinematic variable m_CT2 recently proposed in Won Sang Cho, Jihn E. Kim, and Ji-Hun Kim, Phys. Rev. D 81, 095010 (2010). The variable is designed to be applied to models such as R-parity conserving supersymmetry (SUSY) when there is pair production of new heavy particles each of which decays to a single massless visible and a massive invisible component. It was proposed by Cho, Kim, and Kim that a measurement of the peak of the m_CT2 distribution could be used to precisely constrain the masses of the SUSY particles. We show that, for the an example characterized by direct squark decays, when standard model backgrounds are included in simulations, the sensitivity of the m_CT2 variable to the SUSY particle masses is more seriously impacted for m_CT2 than for other previously proposed variables.

[en] This paper seeks to demonstrate that many of the existing mass-measurement variables proposed for hadron colliders (m_T, m_eff, m_T2, missing p-vector_T, h_T, √(s-circumflex)_min, etc.) are far more closely related to each other than is widely appreciated, and indeed can all be viewed as a common mass-bound specialized for a variety of purposes. A consequence of this is that one may understand better the strengths and weaknesses of each variable, and the circumstances in which each can be used to best effect. In order to achieve this, we find it necessary first to revisit the seemingly empty and infertile wilderness populated by the subscript 'T' (as in 'pe_T') in order to remind ourselves what this process of transversification actually means. We note that, far from being simple, transversification can mean quite different things to different people. Those readers who manage to battle through the barrage of transverse notation distinguishing 'T' from 'v' or or from 'o', and 'early projection' from 'late projection', will find their efforts rewarded towards the end of the paper with (i) a better understanding of how collider mass variables fit together, (ii) an appreciation of how these variables could be generalized to search for things more complicated than supersymmetry, (iii) will depart with an aversion to thoughtless or naieve use of the so-called 'transverse methods' of any of the popular computer Lorentz-vector libraries, and (iv) will take care in their subsequent papers to be explicit about which of the 61 identified variants of the 'transverse mass' they are employing.

[en] The SemiConductor Tracker (SCT) data acquisition (DAQ) system will calibrate, configure, and control the approximately six million front-end channels of the ATLAS silicon strip detector. It will provide a synchronized bunch-crossing clock to the front-end modules, communicate first-level triggers to the front-end chips, and transfer information about hit strips to the ATLAS high-level trigger system. The system has been used extensively for calibration and quality assurance during SCT barrel and endcap assembly and for performance confirmation tests after transport of the barrels and endcaps to CERN. Operating in data-taking mode, the DAQ has recorded nearly twenty million synchronously-triggered events during commissioning tests including almost a million cosmic ray triggered events. In this paper we describe the components of the data acquisition system, discuss its operation in calibration and data-taking modes and present some detector performance results from these tests

[en] The ATLAS SemiConductor Tracker (SCT) was built in three sections: a barrel and two end-caps. This paper describes the design, construction and final integration of the barrel section. The barrel is constructed around four nested cylinders that provide a stable and accurate support structure for the 2112 silicon modules and their associated services. The emphasis of this paper is directed at the aspects of engineering design that turned a concept into a fully-functioning detector, as well as the integration and testing of large sub-sections of the final SCT barrel detector. The paper follows the chronology of the construction. The main steps of the assembly are described with the results of intermediate tests. The barrel service components were developed and fabricated in parallel so that a flow of detector modules, cooling loops, opto-harnesses and Frequency-Scanning-Interferometry (FSI) alignment structures could be assembled onto the four cylinders. Once finished, each cylinder was conveyed to the next site for the mounting of modules to form a complete single barrel. Extensive electrical and thermal function tests were carried out on the completed single barrels. In the next stage, the four single barrels and thermal enclosures were combined into the complete SCT barrel detector so that it could be integrated with the Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT) barrel to form the central part of the ATLAS inner detector. Finally, the completed SCT barrel was tested together with the TRT barrel in noise tests and using cosmic rays.

[en] The ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) Inner Detector provides charged particle tracking in the centre of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The Inner Detector consists of three subdetectors: the Pixel Detector, the Semiconductor Tracker (SCT), and the Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT). This paper summarizes the tests that were carried out at the final stage of SCT+TRT integration prior to their installation in ATLAS. The combined operation and performance of the SCT and TRT barrel and endcap detectors was investigated through a series of noise tests, and by recording the tracks of cosmic rays. This was a crucial test of hardware and software of the combined tracker detector systems. The results of noise and cross-talk tests on the SCT and TRT in their final assembled configuration, using final readout and supply hardware and software, are reported. The reconstruction and analysis of the recorded cosmic tracks allowed testing of the offline analysis chain and verification of basic tracker performance parameters, such as efficiency and spatial resolution, in combined operation before installation

[en] A small set of final prototypes of the ATLAS Inner Detector silicon tracking system (Pixel Detector and SemiConductor Tracker), were used to take data during the 2004 Combined Test Beam. Data were collected from runs with beams of different flavour (electrons, pions, muons and photons) with a momentum range of 2 to 180 GeV/c. Four independent methods were used to align the silicon modules. The corrections obtained were validated using the known momenta of the beam particles and were shown to yield consistent results among the different alignment approaches. From the residual distributions, it is concluded that the precision attained in the alignment of the silicon modules is of the order of 5 μm in their most precise coordinate.