Simulated Performance of a Strip-Based Upgraded VELO

In order to evaluate the expected performance of an upgraded Vertex Locator based on silicon-strip sensors, two different sensor layouts and two different thermo-mechanical module designs were implemented in the LHCb simulation framework. In this note, the digitisation, clustering and track reconstruction algorithms are described, and the simulated performance, at beam conditions corresponding to instantaneous luminosities of 1 and 2$\times 10^{33} cm^{−2}s^{−1}$, is compared to that of the current Vertex Locator. Results are presented on the material budget, strip and cluster occupancies, tracking efficiencies as well as on primary vertex, impact parameter and decay time resolutions.