Proposal for a New High Precision Particle Detector
THE precision commonly quoted when measuring the position of a charged particle track is ±0.3 mm for wire plane spark chambers1, ±0.4 mm for streamer chambers2 and ±0.7 mm for multiwire proportional chambers3,4. With the onset of the new generation of synchrotrons there is a need for detectors with better resolution. This arises from the fact that the accelerated particles will receive only small deflexions in analysing magnets. This article consists of a proposal for a detector that will provide the necessary increase in resolution.
Study of the characteristics of a gas-discharge counter with a negatively charged wire in the air
Abstract Gas-discharge counters with a negative potential at the thin central electrode are studied. In a counter with thus applied high-voltage, electron avalanches develop in the direction away from the centre in a greatly decreasing electric field. The mechanism for this process and the effect of various factors are described. The counting and amplitude characteristics are given for one of the counters. The geometrically sensitive region and the dependence of its performance on the type of primary ionization is studied. The counter was tested in the air under normal conditions.
Modeling Coherent Backscattering Errors in Fiber Optic Gyroscopes for Sources of Arbitrary Line Width
We present a new model of the noise and drift induced by coherent backscattering in a fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) interrogated with a light source of arbitrary temporal coherence. This study is critical to understand whether a FOG driven with a laser instead of a broadband source can attain high sensitivity and stability, which would have the overwhelming benefit of improving the FOG scale factor stability by at least ten-fold and would enable the use of FOGs for inertial navigation of aircrafts. Analytical and numerical solutions bring to light two significant new predictions. First, coherent-backscattering noise can be made negligibly small by utilizing a laser with a very narrow linewidth (less than ~ 20 kHz), although in this regime the drift is high. Second, by using a laser with a broad linewidth (greater than ~ 10 MHz), both the noise and the drift are low enough for aircraft inertial navigation. The dependencies of the noise and drift on fiber loss, loop coupling coefficient, and backscattering coefficient are also presented to define the optimum mode of operation of this new class of FOGs.