Long-lived particle reconstruction downstream of the LHCb magnet

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the feasibility of reconstructing long-lived particles using only downstream tracker data in the LHCb detector, expanding the experiment's sensitivity to new physics phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces methods for reconstructing long-lived particles with downstream-only tracking, enhancing LHCb's ability to explore extended decay volumes and rare particle decays.

Findings

Successful reconstruction of long-lived $ extLambda$ and $K_S^0$ particles downstream of the magnet.

Extended tracking capability up to 2.5 meters upstream for exotic particle searches.

Evidence that decay volume and physics reach of LHCb can be significantly increased.

Abstract

Charged-particle trajectories are usually reconstructed with the LHCb detector using combined information from the tracking devices placed upstream and downstream of the 4\,T\,m dipole magnet. Trajectories reconstructed using only information from the tracker downstream of the dipole magnet, which are referred to as T tracks, have not been used for physics analysis to date. The challenges of the reconstruction of long-lived particles using T tracks for use in physics analyses are discussed and solutions are proposed. The feasibility and the tracking performance are studied using samples of long-lived $\varLambda$ and $K_S^0$ hadrons decaying between 6.0 and 7.6 metres downstream of the proton-proton collision point, thereby traversing most of the magnetic field region and providing maximal sensitivity to magnetic and electric dipole moments. The reconstruction can be expanded upstream to about 2.5 meters for use in direct searches of exotic long-lived particles. The data used in this analysis have been recorded between 2015 and 2018 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 6\,fb$^{-1}$. The results obtained demonstrate the possibility to further extend the decay volume and the physics reach of the LHCb experiment.