Measurement of the muon flux at the SND@LHC experiment

Abstract
TheScatteringandNeutrinoDetectorattheLHC (SND@LHC) started taking data at the beginning of Run 3 of the LHC. The experiment is designed to perform measurements with neutrinos produced in proton-proton collisions at the LHC in an energy range between 100 GeV and 1 TeV. It covers a previously unexplored pseudo-rapidity range of 7.2 <η<8.4. The detector is located 480m downstream of the ATLAS interaction point in the TI18 tunnel. It comprises a veto system, a target consisting of tungsten plates interleaved with nuclear emulsion and scintillating fiber (SciFi) trackers, followed by a muon detector (UpStream, US and DownStream, DS). In this article we report the measurement of the muon flux in three subdetectors: the emulsion, the SciFi trackers and the DownStream Muon detector. The muon flux per integrated luminosity through an 18×18cm2 area in the emulsion is: 1.5 ±0.1(stat) × 104 fb/cm2. The muon flux per integrated luminosity through a 31×31cm2 area in the centre of the SciFi is: 2.06 ±0.01(stat) ± 0.12(sys) × 104fb/cm2 The muon flux per integrated luminosity through a 52×52cm2 area in the centre of the downstream muon system is: 2.35 ±0.01(stat) ± 0.10(sys) × 104 fb/cm2 The total relative uncertainty of the measurements by the electronic detectors is 6% for the SciFi and 4% for the DS measurement. The Monte Carlo simulation prediction of these fluxes is 20–25% lower than the measured values.
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Citation
The European Physical Journal C. 2024 Jan 27;84(1):90