Operation and performance of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter in Run 1

TL;DR

This paper reviews the operation and performance of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter during LHC Run 1, highlighting calibration, stability, and response to various particles with results aligning with design specifications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the calorimeter's performance, calibration techniques, and stability during Run 1, based on cosmic-ray and collision data.

Findings

Stable calorimeter response during Run 1

Effective energy and time calibration methods

Excellent performance in particle detection and response

Abstract

The Tile Calorimeter is the hadron calorimeter covering the central region of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Approximately 10000 photomultipliers collect light from scintillating tiles acting as the active material sandwiched between slabs of steel absorber. This paper gives an overview of the calorimeter's performance during the years 2008-2012 using cosmic-ray muon events and proton-proton collision data at centre-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV with a total integrated luminosity of nearly 30 fb$^{-1}$. The signal reconstruction methods, calibration systems as well as the detector operation status are presented. The combination of energy calibration methods and time calibration proved excellent performance, resulting in good stability of the calorimeter response under varying conditions during the LHC Run 1. Finally, the Tile Calorimeter response to isolated muons and hadrons as well as to jets from proton-proton collisions is presented. The results demonstrate excellent performance in accord with specifications mentioned in the Technical Design Report.