Reconstruction of 400 GeV/c proton interactions with the SHiP-charm project

TL;DR

This paper reports on the initial results of reconstructing 400 GeV/c proton interactions using nuclear emulsions and electronic detectors in the SHiP-charm project, demonstrating effective vertex reconstruction in a complex environment.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining nuclear emulsions and electronic detectors for vertex reconstruction in high-energy proton interactions.

Findings

Successful reconstruction of proton interaction vertices.

Effective detection in a challenging environment with secondary particles.

Validation of the hybrid detector setup.

Abstract

The SHiP-charm project was proposed to measure the associated charm production induced by 400 GeV/c protons in a thick target, including the contribution from cascade production. An optimisation run was performed in July 2018 at CERN SPS using a hybrid setup. The high resolution of nuclear emulsions acting as vertex detector was complemented by electronic detectors for kinematic measurements and muon identification. Here we present first results on the analysis of nuclear emulsions exposed in the 2018 run, which prove the capability of reconstructing proton interaction vertices in a harsh environment, where the signal is largely dominated by secondary particles produced in hadronic and electromagnetic showers within the lead target.