The reconstruction of high-pt photons with the electromagnetic calorimeter of the ALICE experiment at the LHC.
Careful jet and jet quenching analyses require calibration with the parton energy prior to its passage though the nuclear matter. This can only be obtained via analysis of y-jet processes because photons, once produced, are essentially unaffected by a colour-charged medium, and pass through the medium retaining their original energy. The experimental challenges include identifying photons within the high multiplicity heavy-ion environment and reducing the background from the photonic decays of neutral pions. This thesis details algorithms developed for photon reconstruction in the heavy-ion environment for the electromagnetic calorimeter (EMCal) of the ALICE experiment. Shower shape analysis was used to optimise cuts to discriminate between the direct photon signal and the background from the photonic decays of neutral pions.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations