Charge sharing and alignment performance of bent ALPIDEs measured with low-energy protons
The upgrade of the ALICE experiments Inner Tracking System (ITS3) aims to replace its innermost detection layers with bent wafer-scale CMOS MAPS sensors. This study examines the performance of ALPIDE chips, currently used in the ALICE ITS2, when operated in a bent configuration under realistic experimental conditions. Proton beams with energies of 80 MeV, 120 MeV and 200 MeV were used to study proton-proton elastic scattering on a polypropylene fiber target reconstructed using two opposing arms of trackers with sensors bent to radii of 18 mm, 24 mm and 30 mm. The measured low-momentum protons provided a testbed for investigating clustering behavior in high-energy loss events, where no significant impact of bending was observed on cluster size. Additionally, alignment strategies for bent detectors were evaluated using the distance of closest approach (DCA) and opening angle between scattered proton tracks as benchmarks. The achieved resolution matches expectations from simulations, confirming the suitability of bent MAPS sensors for future high-energy and nuclear physics applications.