# Measuring the ATLAS ITk pixel detector material via multiple scattering of positrons at the CERN PS

**Authors:** Simon Florian Koch, Brian Moser, Antonín Lindner, Valerio Dao, Ignacio Asensi, Daniela Bortoletto, Marianne Brekkum, Florian Dachs, Hans Ludwig Joos, Milou van Rijnbach, Abhishek Sharma, Ismet Siral, Carlos Solans, Yingjie Wei

PMC · DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-14092-2 · The European Physical Journal. C, Particles and Fields · 2025-04-03

## TL;DR

This paper reports the first direct measurement of the material in the ATLAS ITk pixel detector using positron scattering at CERN.

## Contribution

The first direct measurement of the material budget of an ATLAS ITk pixel module using multiple scattering of low-energy positrons.

## Key findings

- The average material budget was measured as 0.89% with uncertainties.
- The measured value agrees with the expected estimate of 0.88%.
- The measurement was conducted using a four-plane telescope at the CERN Proton Synchrotron.

## Abstract

The ITk is a new silicon tracker for the ATLAS experiment designed to increase detector resolution, readout capacity, and radiation hardness, in preparation for the larger number of simultaneous proton–proton interactions at the High Luminosity LHC. This paper presents the first direct measurement of the material budget of an ATLAS ITk pixel module, performed at a testbeam at the CERN Proton Synchrotron via the multiple scattering of low energy positrons within the module volume. Using a four plane telescope of thin monolithic pixel detectors from the MALTA Collaboration, scattering datasets were recorded at a beam energy of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$1.2\,\text {GeV}$$\end{document}1.2GeV. Kink angle distributions were extracted from tracks derived with and without information from the ITk pixel module, and were fit to extract the RMS scattering angle, which was converted to a fractional radiation length \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$x/X_0$$\end{document}x/X0. The average \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$x/X_0$$\end{document}x/X0 across the module was measured as \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$[0.89 \pm 0.01 \text { (resolution)} \pm 0.01 \text { (subtraction)} \,\,\pm \,\, 0.08 \text {~(beam momentum band)}]\%$$\end{document}[0.89±0.01(resolution)±0.01(subtraction)±0.08(beam momentum band)]%, which agrees within uncertainties with an estimate of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$0.88\%$$\end{document}0.88% derived from material component expectations.

## Full-text entities

- **Chemicals:** silicon (MESH:D012825)

## Full text

_Full body text omitted from this summary view._ Fetch the complete paper as Markdown: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC11968520/full.md

## Figures

12 figures with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC11968520/full.md

## References

15 references — full list in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC11968520/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC11968520