The NA60 silicon pixel telescope

The NA60 experiment studies the production of open charm and prompt dimuons in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN SPS. The main goal of NA60 is the study of various possible signatures of the transition from hadronic to deconfined partonic matter, e.g. anomalous charmonium suppression, dimuons from thermal radiation and modifications of vector meson properties. Reaching these goals is facilitated by the use of new state-of-the-art silicon detectors in the vertex region. Downstream of the target and inside a 2.5T dipole magnetic field a pixel telescope measures the charged tracks originating from the collisions. The full pixel telescope consists of 16 planes with 96 ALICEILHCb pixel detector assemblies in total. This paper describes the setup of the pixel telescope, results from tests as well as the expected implications of the operation of the silicon detectors in the harsh radiation environment of the NA60 experiment, with heavy-ion collisions. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. RI Tinoco Mendes, Andre David/D-4314-2011; Cortese, Pietro/G-6754-2012