MPD experiment, one of the flagship project at newly constructed NICA accelerator complex at JINR (Dubna), is gearing up for data taking in 2025. For the proper optimization of the facility and the experiment, the detector performance in terms of event and track reconstruction as well as particle identification using dedicated Monte-Carlo should be studied in detail. The principal objective of this project is to learn how these simulation and reconstruction procedures work and how identification of electrons is performed by means of various sub-detector systems.
Tasks
Study of electron identification capability of MPD detector using various sub-detectors such as Time Projection Chamber (TPC), Time of flight (TOF) detector and Electromagnetic Calorimeter (ECal) by means of various detection techniques such as ionization loss (dE/dx) measurements in the TPC.
Preliminary schedule by topics/tasks
Week 1: Introductory lectures about heavy-ion collisions, NICA complex, MPD experiment, and MPDRoot framework.
Weeks 2-3: Installing MPDRoot, running MPDRoot macros, learning/analyzing outputs of the simulation and reconstruction tasks for A+A collisions.
Weeks 4-5: MPD detector performance study for electron identification.
Week 6: preparation of the final report.
Required skills
Mandatory: General Physics and courses on Nuclear Physics, good Linux and C++. Notebook or PC with Linux installed (Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04 are preferable) + sufficient disk space for the MPDRoot installation and data (~50 GB).
Desirable: Basic knowledge about heavy-ion collisions and detectors. Try to install MPDROOT by following the instructions on https://mpdroot.jinr.ru/running-mpdroot-on-local-machine-using-cvmfs/
Acquired skills and experience
By the end of this project, the participant will have an introduction to the physics of heavy-ion collisions, methods of particle identification used in the experiment, detector simulation and data analysis.
Recommended literature
1. Book: “Ultrarelativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions” by Ramona Vogt.
2. Kekelidze V.D. et al. “Three stages of the NICA accelerator complex”, Eur. Phys. J. A (2016) 52, 211.
3. Abgaryan, V. et al. ( MPD Collaboration) “Status and initial physics performance studies of the MPD experiment at NICA”, Eur. Phys. J. A (2022) 58, 140.
4. Raghunath Sahoo. “Relativistic Kinematics”. E-print: 1604.02651 [nucl-ex] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.02651.pdf
5. http://mpd.jinr.ru
6. https://mpdroot.jinr.ru/
