The design, construction and performance of the ALEPH silicon vertex detector

Abstract The ALEPHsilicon vertex detectoris the first detectoroperating in a collidingbeam environment that uses silicon strip detectorswhich provide readout on both sides and hence a three-dimensional point measurement for the trajectory of charged particles. The detectorsystem was commissioned successfully at the e + e − colliderLEP at the research centre CERN, Switzerland, during the year 1991 while taking data at the Z 0 resonance. The achieved spatial resolution of the complete 73 728 channel device (intrinsic plus alignment) is 12 μm in the r - f view and 12 μm in the z view. The design and construction of the entire detectorsystem are discussed in detail and the experience gained in running the detectorwill be described with special emphasis on the uses of this novel tracking device for the physics of short-lived heavy particles produced in the decays of the Z 0 resonance.