Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AIDAinnova (Advancement and Innovation for Detectors at Accelerators)
Reporting period: 2021-04-01 to 2022-09-30
The AIDAinnova project brings together the leading European infrastructures and academic institutions in detector development for particle physics, a field attracting a global community of more than 10,000 scientists. In total, 15 countries and CERN are involved in this programme, which follows in the tradition of the preceding AIDA-2020 project and will also pursue the priorities of the European Strategy for Particle Physics. In this respect, even while advancing some needed R&D for detectors at LHC and at other colliders, AIDAinnova brings greater focus on instrumentation for a future Higgs factory, a more extensive involvement in neutrino physics at accelerators and a stronger engagement with industry.
AIDAinnova aims to develop innovative state-of-the-art monolithic and hybrid pixel, calorimetric, gaseous and cryogenic detectors, as well as novel electronics and mechanics components and dedicated advanced software needed for experiments at future colliders.
The enhanced coordination within the European detector community leverages EU and national resources, and contributes to maintaining Europe's leadership in the field.
AIDAinnova aims to develop innovative state-of-the-art monolithic and hybrid pixel, calorimetric, gaseous and cryogenic detectors, as well as novel electronics and mechanics components and dedicated advanced software needed for experiments at future colliders.
The enhanced coordination within the European detector community leverages EU and national resources, and contributes to maintaining Europe's leadership in the field.
The start of the project was launched by the online kick-off meeting, attended by 306 participants. Scientific and technical achievements and the plans for the second year of the project were discussed at the first Annual meeting followed by 225 participants.WP2 designed the website, launched a newsletter channel, social media packs and other useful tools. A publication committee and a publication process through the CERN Document Server (CDS) have been launched. Actions have been taken to facilitate a KT network with other EU projects as part of the INFRA-INNOV. WP3 developed New hardware and software to efficiently collect high-quality data from the detectors. The common data acquisition software has also been upgraded. New monitoring software is being developed to ensure that the data is of the highest quality. In WP4 a new control sample holder has been installed at one of the RBI ion microprobes, while sample cooling capabilities have been tested for the second ion microbeam. New features have been integrated into the IRRAD Data Manager (IDM) and two new IDM instances are designed and being developed for the ENEA-FNG and GIF++. A generic gamma spectrometry data model has been devised. Several TPA-TCT systems were installed at different institutes. The development of an automatic TF test bench for FEE prototypes is well advanced. In WP5, devices were fabricated in two foundries and initial tests of small structures and large chips were conducted according to the work-plan. In WP6 the work has been focused on the characterization of the prototype runs of timing detectors. The Allpix Squared Monte-Carlo simulation framework has been extended to simulate the sensor response of LGAD and 3D sensors. Process optimization has been carried out for the interconnection technology based on Anisotropic Conductive Films (ACF). In the wafer-to-wafer interconnection project, the selection of the read-out chip and sensors has been completed, and a production of daisy chains has been launched at IZM. Progress have been made in WP7, in the pursued technologies RPCs, MPGDs for muon systems or hadron calorimeters, drift chambers for tracking at a Higgs factory, high-pressure TPCs for long-baseline neutrino experiments and Ring-Imaging Cherenkov detectors for particle identification. The activities in WP8 aim to develop cutting-edge calorimeters and particle ID detectors. The proposed granular calorimeters will increase the number of cells by up to two orders of magnitude compared with existing calorimeters at the LHC. Other approaches such as pixelised calorimeters, liquid noble gas and dual-readout calorimeters are developed further. Compact electronics will allow the detectors to be almost fully hermetic. New materials will allow future detectors to discriminate particles at the picosecond level. In WP9, the scintillation light readout task has made progress in developing electronics for SiPM readout for the ProtoDUNE II run at CERN as well as qualifying the X-ARAPUCA detectors. The Vertical Drift task has made very large progress in building the first Charge Readout Planes and successfully testing them in a dedicated cold-box cryostat at the CERN Neutrino Platform. In WP10, the first circulation of CO2 boiling flow at -20o C into an ultra-light truss structure; mechanical and hydraulic characterization tests of different 3D printed samples in Al2O3 and in AlSi12; experiences of 3D printing a micro-hydraulic connector in PEEK; the full definition of a new test rig to characterize the thermal-hydraulic properties of supercritical CO2 in small diameter pipes; the definition of an innovative hybrid cycle using supercritical Krypton as a refrigerant. In WP11, some ASICs submitted and others are now in an advanced design stage. Several multi-channel ASICs, to readout different kind of detectors, are being developed in mature technology nodes such as 130 and 65 nm. A chip to readout AC-coupled LGAD has already been submitted by CNRS OMEGA and test results of the LIROC ASIC for SiPM developed by WEEROC are now available. The first 16-channel AC-LGAD readout ASIC has been received and will be used for detector characterization. The MPW (D23) is being prepared with chips from AGH, INFN, CNRS and WEEROC. In WP12 simulation machine learning models that more accurately reproduce full simulation have been developed, while fast adaptation methods have demonstrated the ability to adapt to different detector layouts. Track reconstruction in Acts has benefited from the development of new algorithms as well as growing support for GPUs. Studies for new detectors, such as dual-readout calorimeters and MPGDs, have developed their accurate simulation. The particle flow algorithms have started to be used for the DUNE ND-LAr detector, and the APRIL and AMSTER PF techniques are being tuned on large ILC simulation samples. All of these projects have started their integration into the turnkey stack task, and, thanks to the development of a data model converter, can run reconstruction with iLCSoft algorithms. The first algorithms have been ported from iLCSoft to native Key4hep. In WP13 four projects have been selected with a competitive selection procedure and are by now well under way.
Many of the detectors foreseen for future experiments being developed in AIDAinnova will reach a very mature level by the end of the project. The potential impacts are far-reaching: within the scientific field these will ensure maintaining Europe's leadership in the field. However, many of the sensors and systems being developed within AIDAinnova have very interesting potential applications in many other fields, going from medical applications, to homeland security, to environmental implications and even space technology.