Particle identification with the cluster counting technique for the IDEA drift chamber

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of the cluster counting technique in the IDEA drift chamber for particle identification, demonstrating it can double the resolution of traditional methods through simulation and beam testing.

Contribution

It develops a fast simulation algorithm for ionization cluster generation and validates the cluster counting technique with beam test results at CERN.

Findings

Cluster counting achieves twice the resolution of dE/dx.

Simulation and beam test results are consistent.

The technique's efficiency depends on track angle and limiting effects.

Abstract

IDEA (Innovative Detector for an Electron-positron Accelerator) is a general-purpose detector concept, designed to study electron-positron collisions in a wide energy range from a very large circular leptonic collider. Its drift chamber is designed to provide an efficient tracking, a high precision momentum measurement and an excellent particle identification by exploiting the application of the cluster counting technique. To investigate the potential of the cluster counting techniques on physics events, a simulation of the ionization clusters generation is needed, therefore we developed an algorithm which can use the energy deposit information provided by Geant4 toolkit to reproduce, in a fast and convenient way, the clusters number distribution and the cluster size distribution. The results obtained confirm that the cluster counting technique allows to reach a resolution 2 times better than the traditional dE/dx method. A beam test has been performed during November 2021 at CERN on the H8 to validate the simulations results, to define the limiting effects for a fully efficient cluster counting and to count the number of electron clusters released by an ionizing track at a fixed $\beta\gamma$ as a function of the track angle. The simulation and the beam test results will be described briefly in this issue.