No Arabic abstract
We studied the effect of water vapor on the performance of glass Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) in the avalanche mode operation. Controlled and calibrated amount of water vapor was added to the RPC gas mixture that has C$_2$H$_2$F$_4$ as the major component. The deterioration in the performance of RPC was observed while operating with wet gas and recovered after switching to standard gas.
The Microhexcavity Panel ( muHex) is a novel gaseous micropattern particle detector comprised of a dense array of close-packed hexagonal pixels, each operating as an independent detection unit for ionizing radiation. It is a second generation detector derived from plasma panel detectors and microcavity detectors. The muHex is under development to be deployed as a scalable, fast timing (ns) and hermetically sealed gaseous tracking detector with high rate ( > 100 KHz/cm^2 ) capability. The devices reported here were fabricated as 16 x 16 pixel arrays of 2 mm edge-to-edge, 1 mm deep hexagonal cells embedded in a thin, 1.4 mm glass-ceramic wafer. Cell walls are metalized cathodes, connected to high voltage bus lines through conductive vias. Anodes are small, 457 micron diameter metal discs screen printed on the upper substrate. The detectors are filled with an operating gas to near 1 atm and then closed with a shut-off valve. They have been operated in both avalanche mode and gas discharge devices, producing mV to volt level signals with about 1 to 3 ns rise times. Operation in discharge mode is enabled by high impedance quench resistors on the high voltage bus at each pixel site. Results indicate that each individual pixel behaves as an isolated detection unit with high single pixel intrinsic efficiency to both betas from radioactive sources and to cosmic ray muons. Continuous avalanche mode operation over several days at hit rates over 300 KHz/cm^2 with no gas flow have been observed. Measurements of pixel isolation, timing response, efficiency, hit rate and rate stability are reported.
Several thin Low Gain Avalanche Detectors from Hamamatsu Photonics were irradiated with neutrons to different equivalent fluences up to $Phi_{eq}=3cdot10^{15}$ cm$^{-2}$. After the irradiation they were annealed at 60$^circ$C in steps to times $>20000$ minutes. Their properties, mainly full depletion voltage, gain layer depletion voltage, generation and leakage current, as well as their performance in terms of collected charge and time resolution, were determined between the steps. It was found that the effect of annealing on timing resolution and collected charge is not very large and mainly occurs within the first few tens of minutes. It is a consequence of active initial acceptor concentration decrease in the gain layer with time, where changes of around 10% were observed. For any relevant annealing times for detector operation the changes of effective doping concentration in the bulk negligibly influences the performance of the device, due to their small thickness and required high bias voltage operation. At very long annealing times the increase of the effective doping concentration in the bulk leads to a significant increase of the electric field in the gain layer and, by that, to the increase of gain at given voltage. The leakage current decreases in accordance with generation current annealing.
The ALICE muon trigger (MTR) system consists of 72 Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) detectors arranged in two stations, each composed of two planes with 18 RPCs per plane. The detectors are operated in maxi-avalanche mode using a mixture of 89.7% C$_2$H$_2$F$_4$, 10% i-C$_4$H$_{10}$ and 0.3% SF$_6$. A number of detector performance indicators, such as efficiency and dark current, have been monitored over time throughout the LHC Run2 (2015-18). While the efficiency showed very good stability, a steady increase in the absorbed dark current was observed. Since the end of 2018, the LHC has entered a phase of long shutdown, during which the ALICE experiment will be upgraded to cope with the next phase of data taking, expected in 2021. The MTR is undergoing a major upgrade of the front-end and readout electronics, and will change its functionalities, becoming a Muon Identifier. Only the replacement of the most irradiated RPCs is planned during the upgrade. It is therefore important to perform dedicated studies to gain further insights into the status of the detector. In particular, two RPCs were flushed with pure Ar gas for a prolonged period of time and a plasma was created by fully ionizing the gas. The output gas was analyzed using a Gas Chromatograph combined with a Mass Spectrometer and the possible presence of fluorinated compounds originating from the interaction of the plasma with the inner surfaces of the detector has been assessed using an Ion-Selective Electrode station. This contribution will include a detailed review of the ALICE muon RPC performance at the LHC. The procedure and results of the argon plasma test, described above, are also discussed.
In the RHIC forward (RHICf) experiment, an operation with pp collisions was performed at $sqrt{s},=,$510 GeV from 24-27 June 2017. The performances, energy and position resolutions, trigger efficiency, stability, and background during the operation, have been studied using data and simulations, which revealed that the requirements for production cross-section and transverse single-spin asymmetry measurements of very forward photons, $pi^0$s, and neutrons were satisfied. In this paper, we describe the details of these studies.
This paper reports the detailed noise characterization, investigation of various noise sources and its mitigation to improve the performance of a cryogenic bolometer detector. The noise spectrum has been measured for a sapphire bolometer test setup with indigenously developed NTD Ge sensor in the CFDR system at Mumbai. The effect of external noise, arising either from ground loops in the system or from the diagnostic and control electronics of the cryostat, on the performance of a cryogenic bolometer is assessed. A systematic comparison of the influence of different noise pickups on the bolometer resolution is also presented. The best-achieved resolution at 15mK is ~15 keV for heater pulses and appears to be mainly limited by the noise due to the pulse tube cryocooler.