Characterisation of Silicon Pixel Sensors using Corryvreckan for the ATLAS Experiment in CERN.

When students think of data analysis in the context of particle physics, they will first think of the analysis of ”fundamental” physics data such as data acquired at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, in order to examine the fundamental laws of nature or probe the particles of the standard model. As you can imagine, this data is only available after many years of research and development (R&D) in detector development and other fields such as accelerator physics. n our case, pixel sensors are solid-state particle detectors that play a crucial role in modern particle physics experiments. They serve as the fundamental building blocks of detection systems in major experiments worldwid, i.e. ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, and LHCb, as well as in medical imaging and industrial applications. However, developing a pixel sensor for a specific experiment requires extensive R&D, involving years of prototyping, electronics integration, performance evaluation, and ultimately, test beam campaigns. This project focuses on one very important aspect of detector development: test-beam data analysis, a crucial ingredient to facilitate large-scale experiments as they are performed at the LHC. Throughout this project, the student will become familiar with the analysis and visualization of test-beam data. The student will acquire the following knowledge and skills: 1) To understand the working principle of silicon pixel detectors. 2) Basic data analysis and data visualization skills. 3) To analyse a set of test-beam data in order to characterize a pixel sensor performance. 4) To comprehend challenges in designing, testing and operating a pixel sensor. Of course, the analysis of data are taken from real test-beam environment at CERN recorded at the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) at CERN, Switzerland, therefore the detector performance are well known. The analysis is carried out with the help of the software packages ROOT and Corryvreckan, with which the student will become familiar with. A step-by-step documentation will be provided, the student as well will build up an entire test-beam data reconstruction and analysis chain. This is followed by a more in-depth analysis of the performance of a sensor prototype. Prerequisites requires basic knowledge and interest in the field of semiconductor physics and electronics. A particular preknowledge in particle physics is not necessary. The analysis and data visualisation is carried out using ROOT and Corryvreckan, which are both an open-source frameworks. These software frameworks are written in C++ but they are ready-to-use and well documented, i.e. the student does not need to go through the source code to understand how it works ’behind the scenes’. A user manual and online help are available and should cover most questions. In the end of this project, the student will be familiar with pixel sensor properties and characteristics, interaction of Particles with Matter and data analysis and data visualisation .