Silicon Tracker

The LHCb Silicon Tracker is a large-surface silicon microstrip detector that constitutes an important part of the LHCb tracking system. It uses single-sided silicon strip detectors with a strip pitch of approximately 200 μm, produced from 6" wafers and arranged into up to 38 cm long readout strips.

The Silicon Tracker consists of two parts: the "Tracker Turicensis" (TT) is located in between RICH1 and the LHCb dipole magnet. It covers a rectangular area of approximately 140 cm in width and 120 cm in height. Its four detection layers add up to a total sensitive area of approximately 7 m2. The "Inner Tracker" (IT) covers a cross-shaped area around the LHC beam pipe in tracking stations T1-T3, in between the LHCb dipole magnet and RICH2. The cross extends over approximately 120 cm in width and 40 cm in height. Twelve detection layers in the Inner Tracker add up to a sensitive area of approximately 4.2 m2.

The detector design is described in two Technical Design Reports and in the LHCb detector paper that was published in August 2008. Main areas of R&D have been the optimization of the silicon sensor geometries, the development of a dedicated LHCb front-end readout chip and a fast digital optical readout link, and the design of light-weight solutions for the mechanical support and cooling of front-end electronics and silicon sensors.

The LHCb Silicon Tracker group consists of about 30 physicists and engineers from five institutes in Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Ukraine.

The installation of the two detectors was completed in summer 2008 (see our photo gallery). Together with the rest of LHCb, we are now working day and night to get our detector in perfect shape for the first collisions from the LHC.

Institutes and People

• Institutes involved in the LHCb Silicon Tracker:
  • Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg (Institute home page)
  • LPHE, EPFL Lausanne (LHCb group home page)
  • KINR, Ukranian Academy of Sciences, Kiev
  • Budker Institute for Nuclear Physics, Novosibirsk (Institute home page)
  • Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (LHCb group home page)
  • Physik-Institut der Universität Zürich (LHCb group home page)
• Silicon Tracker telephone and e-mail list