Performance of Calorimetry in ALICE

TL;DR

This paper reviews the performance of ALICE's electromagnetic calorimeters in measuring photons, neutral mesons, and jets across different collision systems at the LHC, highlighting their role in the experiment's physics program.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive assessment of the calorimeters' performance and demonstrates their effectiveness in high-energy physics measurements within ALICE.

Findings

Calorimeters achieve high precision in photon measurements.

Effective trigger system enhances data collection of high-energy events.

Physics results validate calorimeter performance across collision types.

Abstract

The ALICE experiment at LHC studies the strong interaction sector of the Standard Model with pp, pA and AA collisions. Within the scope of the physics program, measurements of photons, neutral mesons and jets in ALICE are performed by two electromagnetic calorimeters. Precise and high-granularity photon spectrometer (PHOS) composed of lead-tungstate crystals, along with a wide-aperture lead-scintillator sampling calorimeter (EMCal) provide complementary measurements of photon observables in a wide kinematic range. The calorimeter trigger system allows the experiment to utilize efficiently the full delivered luminosity, recording a data sample enhanced with high-energy photons and jets. Performance of the ALICE calorimeters from proton-proton to heavy-ion collision systems is discussed and illustrated by physics results derived from data collected by ALICE with its electromagnetic calorimeter system.