From em@editorialmanager.com Wed Apr 30 10:19:45 2025
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2025 08:19:32 +0000
From: Christian Joram <em@editorialmanager.com>
Reply-To: Christian Joram <christian.joram@cern.ch>
To: Peter Kluit <s01@nikhef.nl>
Subject: Your submission


Ms. Ref. No.: NIMA-D-25-00338
Title: Towards a Pixel TPC part II:  particle identification with a 32-chip
GridPix detector
Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A

Dear Dr Kluit,

I have received the reviewers' comments on your paper that are appended below. 

The paper is interesting, well written and matches the scope of our journal. The
reviewers have identified a number of relatively small issues that need
clarification and will - if properly addressed - further improve the quality of
the paper.

Considering the high number of issues, I conclude that the paper requires a
major revision before it can be re-considered for publication. 

If you decide to revise the work, please submit a list of changes or a rebuttal
against each point raised when you submit the revised manuscript.
The revision should be submitted by
Jun 29 2025 11:59:59:000PM

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With best regards,

Christian Joram, PhD
Editor
Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A

Reviewers' comments:



Reviewer #1: Dear Authors,

This paper deals with the construction and the performance evaluation of a Time
Projection Chamber (TPC) module featuring 32 GridPix detectors. Tested at DESY
using electron beams of 5 and 6 GeV/c with magnetic fields 1 Tesla and without
magnetic field, the TPC achieved impressive particle identification (PID)
resolutions with two different analysis methods: (1) the dE/dx Truncation Method
and (2) the Template Fit Method achieving respectively 3.6% of 2.9% of
resolutions for the same conditions (1 T data for electrons).
Both methods demonstrate the GridPix detector's effective capabilities in
particle identification.
The single-electron efficiency remained largely stable even at high hit rates,
highlighting the GridPix's capabilities for effective tracking and PID,
particularly in distinguishing pions from kaons at various momenta in proposed
future experiments.

This parper is written is written in a well understandable English.

A minor revision has to be done and comments have to be taken into account
before publication.

Suggested revisions:

* In Abstract:
- l. 30: Add a space: "... using the B = 1 T test beam..."
* In § 1. Introduction
- l. 39: "... was constructed. A GridPix has a very fine ..."
- l. 48: Precise the 'small amount of oxygen and water vapour'. (i.e. < 400
ppm).
- l. 56: "The time-over-threshold (ToT) is related ..."
* In § 2.
- l. 66: Add a comma in "In a GridPix detector, one can measure both ..."
- l. 80: Need to sa how is made the calibraption (add a reference...).
- l. 99: Add a comma in "At distances above approximately 10 pixels, the
distribution ..."
* In § 3.
- l. 167: remove one "runs"
- l. 168: "Runs with high rate and low rate were taken for beam momentum of 6
GeV.
* In the Table 2. the column 'E_e' should be added for more clarity (instead of
run numbers).
- l. 179: "... two high rate runs (121.7 and 122.5 Hz) taken at beam momentum of
5 GeV/c ..."
- l. 187: add the comma after "... (lower half). The rate ..."
* In § 5.
- l. 228: "... has been measured in the run of B = 1 T data ..."
- l. 246: "... and in z = 1 mm".
- l. 254: "... radius of 155 pixels (8.5 mm) ...
- l. 259: Remove the Em dash "-" in the sentence.
- l. 277: For better readability, it could be better to replace track length
'tlength_0' of 1441 mm by explicit term like 'track_{\rm length}^{0}' and track
length 'tlength' by 'track_{\rm length}^{0}'.

Comments:
- Avoid wordiness "In order to ...", please replace it in l. 74, l. 165 and l.
234 by "To .."
- The runs numbers are not relevant. Everything can be replaced by eletron beam
momentum (E_e) at 5 and 6 Gev/c.

Best regards,

The reviewer


Reviewer #2: The manuscript describes measurements with a GridPix-based gaseous
detector.
A measurement campaign at an accelerator site has been conducted and the results
from the analysis are presented.

The topic of the paper is very important for the future of particle detectors.
The concept has the potential to significantly improve key parameters of TPCs,
e.g. the energy resolution and therefore the particle identification
capabilities.

On the one hand the manuscript is well written, I also had the impression that
the measurements were carefully conducted and analysed.
On the other hand, I found important aspects of the paper not well explained if
at all.
For example the concept of dN/dx is not well explained, which is one of the core
topics of the paper.

I assume that the authors could improve the paper by adding a few sentences of
explanation for the mentioned paragraphs.
Therefore, I ask the authors to provide a revision of the paper.

Major comments:

Line 64ff:
The difference between dE/dx and dN/dx is one of the main topics of the paper.
In my opinion, the dE/dx is a concept that is widely used in the community.
The dN/dx concept is a rather new approach and one of the highlights of this
paper.
Therefore I suggest to give a brief introduction to dN/dx and to point out why
it is better (compared to dE/dx) and why GridPix are capable of measuring it.

Line 76f:
Why do you combine tracks to get a new 1 m long track?
This seems to be an important choice but it is not motivated at all.

Line 115ff:
It is not clear to me how you can "define" the response of a MIP by dropping 30%
of the hits.
Can you explain this to me?
And how did you decide which hits to drop?
Was the percentage of dropped hits variied, e.g. between 20% and 40% or was it
fix?

Line 127ff:
Why could one argue that the results from the template fit method will move more
towards the results of the dE/dx truncation method when more diffusion occurs?

Line 151:
Single-electron efficiency is not well defined.
I would suggest calling it the "Single-electron detection efficiency".
Furthermore, I would clarify that you are refering to ionization electrons and
not electrons from your beam.

Line 172ff:
Why do you separate the results into upper and lower half?
Was there a difference in the chips, e.g. in the resistive layer?

Line 189ff:
What is your explanation that the single electron efficiency rises by 1% if the
magnetic field is set to 1T?
Could it be that the measurement uncertainty on the value is greater and not
negligible (as stated in line 182)?

Line 226:
To me, it is not clear what a "single-electron resolution" is.

Line 273ff:
Here, you argue that the template fit yields a significantly better energy
resolution compared to the truncation method.
Earlier (in lines 127ff), you argued that with increasing diffusion, you would
expect that these two methods yield the same result.
In the ILD, the maximum drift length is 2350 mm, therefore diffusion dominates.
Why do the two methods still differ?

Not mentioned:
The quality of your gas was rather poor (according to your previous paper, you
had up to 620 ppm oxygen and up to 7000 ppm water in your detector gas).
How does this influence your results especially with respect to the energy
resolution?
I would assume that especially due to the high oxygen content, you suffer from
electron attachment?
Has this somehow been taken into account?



Minor:

Line 76f:
How do you define a hit?
What is an event?

Line 147ff:
You state that these measurements show the best dE/dx and dN/dx resolution of
TPCs at atmospheric pressures.
Could you confirm this by citing the corresponding values for some TPCs, e.g.
ALICE or sPHENIX?

Line 228:
Phi is not defined.

Line 290ff:
How do these numbers compare to other TPCs?

Table 2:
Include beam momentum in the table.


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