Ongoing upgrades on the road to HiLumi
HGCAL keeps its cool in major testing milestone
One of the largest structures of CMS’s future High Granularity Calorimeter (HGCAL) has successfully completed a demanding series of tests, marking an important milestone on the road to the High-Luminosity LHC and the next era of particle physics research. HGCAL will replace the existing endcap calorimeters of the CMS experiment, allowing particle showers to be reconstructed in unprecedented detail despite the challenging conditions expected.
The ‘cold tests’ on the main supporting structure of the HGCAL went smoothly, with no overheating, condensation, or leaks recorded! This structure will function like a giant, highly controlled freezer: the inside of the structure must be kept at -35°C while the outside should remain close to room temperature. The HGCAL active elements, called cassettes, will be slotted into the large absorber structures made of stainless steel plates and will need this much colder temperature to function optimally for more than a decade. This is the first of two absorber structures to undergo these rigorous temperature tests.