Mapping the material in the LHCb vertex locator using secondary hadronic interactions

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to precisely map the material in the LHCb vertex locator using secondary hadronic interactions, improving background reduction and particle identification in high-energy physics experiments.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel technique to map VELO material using secondary hadronic interactions and validates it with photon conversion data.

Findings

Material map accuracy improves background discrimination.

Secondary vertex p-value assignment enhances particle origin identification.

Validation confirms the reliability of the mapping method.

Abstract

Precise knowledge of the location of the material in the LHCb vertex locator (VELO) is essential to reducing background in searches for long-lived exotic particles, and in identifying jets that originate from beauty and charm quarks. Secondary interactions of hadrons produced in beam-gas collisions are used to map the location of material in the VELO. Using this material map, along with properties of a reconstructed secondary vertex and its constituent tracks, a $p$-value can be assigned to the hypothesis that the secondary vertex originates from a material interaction. A validation of this procedure is presented using photon conversions to dimuons.