Study of the ecological gas for MRPCs


Abstract in English

The Multigap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) is a gaseous detector; the performance depends very much on the gas mixture as well as the design. MRPCs are used as a timing device in several collider experiments and cosmic ray experiments thanks to the excellent timing performance. The typical gas mixtures of RPC-type detectors at current experiments are based on the gases $rm C_2F_4H_2$ and $rm SF_6$. These gases have very high Global Warming Potential (GWP) values of 1430 and 23900 respectively. The present contribution has been performed as a part of efforts to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases used in high energy experiments. The performance of MRPC has been measured with two different gas mixtures; $rm C_2F_4H_2$ based gas mixtures and the ecological $rm C_3F_4H_2$ (HFO-1234ze). A small MRPC was used for the tests. It has an sensitive area of 20 $times$ 20 $rm cm^2$; it was been built with 6 gaps of 220 $mu$m. In normal operation, the strong space charge created within the gas avalanche limits the avalanches growth. $rm SF_6$ plays an important part in the process due to its high attachment coefficient at low electric fields. It is thus necessary to find another gas that has a similar attachment coefficient. $rm CF_{3}I$ is a possible candidate. Tests were performed with this gas added to $rm C_3F_4H_2$.

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