ALICE Inner Tracking System Upgrade: construction and commissioning

TL;DR

The ALICE experiment at CERN is upgrading its Inner Tracking System with new silicon-based MAPS detectors to enhance the reconstruction of rare physics events, with construction nearly complete and commissioning underway.

Contribution

This paper details the construction and commissioning progress of the new silicon-based ITS upgrade using custom MAPS technology.

Findings

Modules construction is nearing completion.

Laboratory commissioning is ongoing with integrated components.

The upgrade enables access to previously inaccessible physics channels.

Abstract

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is the CERN LHC experiment optimized for the study of the strongly interacting matter produced in heavy-ion collisions and devoted to the characterization of the Quark-Gluon Plasma. To achieve the physics program for LHC Run 3 and 4, ALICE is undergoing a major upgrade of the experimental apparatus during the ongoing second long LHC shutdown. A key element of the ALICE upgrade is the substitution of the Inner Tracking System (ITS) with a completely new silicon-based detector whose features will allow the reconstruction of rare physics channels which could not be accessed before with the ITS layout used during LHC Run 1 and 2. The enabling technology for such performance boost is the adoption of custom-designed MAPS (Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors) as detecting element. In this proceedings, the status of the construction and commissioning of the ITS upgrade will be detailed. The completion of the modules construction will be achieved soon and, in the meantime, the commissioning in laboratory is proceeding using the components already integrated in the detector.