The Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics (SCIPP) continues to be engaged in research and development towards an ILC detector. The latest efforts at SCIPP are described, including those associated with the LSTFE front-end readout ASIC, the use of charge division to obtain a longitudinal coordinate from silicon strip detectors, and the contribution of strip resistance to readout noise.
An R&D program on monolithic CMOS pixel sensors for application at the ILC has been started at LBNL. This program profits of significant synergies with other R&D activities on CMOS pixel sensors. The project activities after the first semester of the R&D program are reviewed.
Two special calorimeters are foreseen for the instrumentation of the very forward region of the ILC detector, a luminometer designed to measure the rate of low angle Bhabha scattering events with a precision better than 10-3 and a low polar angle calorimeter, adjacent to the beam-pipe. The latter will be hit by a large amount of beamstrahlung remnants. The amount and shape of these depositions will allow a fast luminosity estimate and the determination of beam parameters. The sensors of this calorimeter must be radiation hard. Both devices will improve the hermeticity of the detector in the search for new particles. Finely segmented and very compact calorimeters will match the requirements. Due to the high occupancy fast front-end electronics is needed. The design of the calorimeters developed and optimised with Monte Carlo simulations is presented. Sensors and readout electronics ASICs have been designed and prototypes are available. Results on the performance of these major components are summarised.
More than twenty institutes join the FCAL Collaboration in study of design of the very forward region of a detector for ILC and CLIC. Of particular importance is an accurate luminosity measurement to the level of 10-3, a requirement driven by the potential for precision physics at a future linear collider. In this paper, the method for luminosity measurement, requirements on luminometer and its integration in the forward region are presented. The impact of several effects contributing to the systematic uncertainty of luminosity measurement is given.
Elegant experiments are being carried out, or are in preparation, to improve the precision with which the solar and atmospheric neutrino-oscillation parameters are known, and to attempt to make a first measurement of the small mixing angle $theta_{13}$. The compelling case for the development of an accelerator-based neutrino source to serve the programme of precision measurements of neutrino oscillations and sensitive searches for leptonic-CP violation that is required to follow these experiments is briefly reviewed. The Neutrino Factory, an intense high-energy neutrino source based on a stored muon beam, is widely believed to yield a precision and sensitivity superior to other proposed second-generation facilities. The alternatives are identified and the case for a critical comparison of the performance of the various options is presented. Highlights of the exciting international R&D programmes which are designed to demonstrate the feasibility of the required techniques are then reviewed. The steps that the international community is taking to produce, by the end of the decade, a full conceptual design for the facility are described. The ambition of the Neutrino Factory community is to demonstrate the feasibility of a cost-effective design such that, should forthcoming measurements show that it is required, the facility could be brought into operation in the second half of the next decade.
Recent results on the particle detector R&D for new accelerators are reviewed. Different approaches for the muon systems, hadronic and electromagnetic calorimeters, particle identification devices, and central trackers are discussed. Main emphasis is made on the detectors for the International Linear Collider and Super B-factory. A detailed description of a novel photodetector, a so called Silicon Photomultiplier, and its applications in scintillator detectors is presented.