34283775
Tracking and level-1 triggering in the forward region of the ATLAS muon spectrometer at sLHC
In the endcap region of the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer (η  >  1) precision tracking and Level-1 triggering are performed by different types of chambers. Monitored Drift Tube chambers (MDT) and Cathode Strip Chambers (CSC) are used for precision tracking, while Thin Gap Chambers (TGC) form the Level-1 muon trigger, selecting muons with high transverse momentum (pT). When by 2018 the LHC peak luminosity of 1034 cm−2s−1 will be increased by a factor of ~ 2 and by another factor of ~ 2–2.5 in about a decade from now (``SLHC''), an improvement of both systems, precision tracking and Level-1 triggering, will become mandatory in order to cope with the high rate of uncorrelated background hits (``cavern background'') and to stay below the maximum trigger rate for the muon system, which is in the range of 10–20 % of the 100 kHz rate, allowed for ATLAS. For the Level-1 trigger of the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer this means a stronger suppression of sub-threshold muons in the high-pT trigger as well as a better rejection of tracks not coming from the primary interaction point. Both requirements, however, can only be fulfilled if spatial resolution and angular pointing accuracy of the trigger chambers, in particular of those in the Inner Station of the endcap, are improved by a large factor. This calls for a complete replacement of the currrently used TGC chambers by a new type of trigger chambers with better performance. In parallel, the precision tracking chambers must be replaced by chambers with higher rate capability to be able to cope with the intense cavern background. In this article we present concepts to decisively improve the Level-1 trigger with newly developed trigger chambers, being characterized by excellent spatial resolution, good time resolution and sufficiently short latency. We also present new types of precision chambers, designed to maintain excellent tracking efficiency and spatial resolution in the presence of high levels of uncorrelated background hits, as generated by γ and neutron conversions.
121460348
Irradiation tests of double-sided silicon strip detectors optimized for the ATLAS-inner-detector-region
Abstract Silicon detectors, which will be used as tracking detectors in LHC-experiments, face special requirements; one major challenge is the long term operation of the detectors in very intense radiation fields. This paper describes a design for double-sided strip detectors, which takes these requirements into account. Irradiation tests have been carried out using 24 GeV protons. The change of detector characteristics in particular guardring-behaviour, punchthrough biasing and interstrip isolation has been studied.
19809846
Development of Fast High-Resolution Muon Drift-Tube Detectors for High Counting Rates
Abstract Pressurized drift-tube chambers are efficient detectors for high-precision tracking over large areas. The Monitored Drift-Tube (MDT) chambers of the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) reach a spatial resolution of 35 μ m and almost 100% tracking efficiency with 6 layers of 30 mm diameter drift tubes operated with an Ar:CO 2 (93:7) gas mixture at 3 bar and a gas gain of 20 000. The ATLAS MDT chambers are designed to cope with background counting rates due to neutrons and γ rays of up to about 300 kHz per tube which will be exceeded for LHC luminosities larger than the design value of 10 34  cm −1  s −1 . Decreasing the drift-tube diameter to 15 mm while keeping the other parameters, including the gas gain, unchanged reduces the maximum drift time from about 700 to 200 ns and the drift-tube occupancy by a factor of 7. New drift-tube chambers for the endcap regions of the ATLAS muon spectrometer have been designed. A prototype chamber consisting of 12 times 8 layers of 15 mm diameter drift tubes of 1 m length has been constructed with a sense wire positioning accuracy of 20 μ m . The 15 mm diameter drift-tubes have been tested with cosmic rays in the Gamma Irradiation Facility at CERN at γ counting rates of up to 1.85 MHz.
120274396
Timing properties of an avalanche diode for single photon counting
A new concept for a silicon single photon counter has been developed at the Semiconductor Laboratory of the Max-Planck-Institute for Physics. The concept combines the principles of a drift diode and an avalanche diode. The electron which is generated by an incoming photon has to drift to the small avalanche region and avalanche breakdown will take place. The detector is operated in Geiger mode. In order to provide high efficiency and good timing properties, the electrons have to be focussed properly with short time jitter. Therefore, drift and timing properties have been investigated using simulations.
13052670
Prospects of using silicon photomultipliers for the astroparticle physics experiments EUSO and MAGIC
We discuss the silicon photomultiplier as a novel photon detector for the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cerenkov Telescope and the Extreme Universe Space Observatory. For these astroparticle experiments we pursue two different developments of the SiPM. One development is pursued at MEPhI, where prototypes are available. In the course of this paper we will describe some characteristics of these devices. The second development, which is using the back illumination principle is at present in its design phase.
195868697
Irradiation tests of double-sided silicon strip detectors with a special guard ring structure
The results of the first irradiation tests of newly designed silicon microstrip detectors performed with 21 MeV protons at the Max-Planck-Institut in Heidelberg are presented. The detectors were developed and produced by the semiconductor laboratory of the Max-Planck-Institut in Munich. Novel guard ring structures allow operation of the detectors at voltages exceeding 300 V.
14331743
D-brane instanton effects in Type II orientifolds: local and global issues
We review how D-brane instantons can generate open string couplings of stringy hierarchy in the superpotential which violate global abelian symmetries and are therefore perturbatively forbidden. We discuss the main ingredients of this mechanism, focussing for concreteness on Euclidean $D2$-branes in Type IIA orientifold compactifications. Special emphasis is put on a careful analysis of instanton zero modes and a classification of situations leading to superpotential or higher fermionic F-terms. This includes the discussion of chiral and non-chiral instanton recombination, viewed as a multi-instanton effect. As phenomenological applications we discuss the generation of perturbatively forbidden Yukawa couplings in SU(5) GUT models and Majorana masses for right-handed neutrinos. Finally we analyse the mirror dual description of $D1$-instantons in Type I compactifications with $D9$-branes and stable holomorphic bundles. We present globally defined semi-realistic string vacua on an elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau realising the non-perturbative generation of Majorana masses.
92988840
Resolution and efficiency of the ATLAS muon drift-tube chambers at high background rates
Abstract The resolution and efficiency of a precision drift-tube chamber for the ATLAS muon spectrometer with final read-out electronics was tested at the Gamma Irradiation Facility at CERN in a 100 GeV muon beam at photon irradiation rates of up to 990 Hz / cm 2 , which corresponds to twice the highest background rate expected in ATLAS. A silicon strip detector telescope served as external reference in the beam. The pulse-height measurement of the read-out electronics was used to perform time-slewing corrections, which lead to an improvement of the average drift-tube resolution from 104 to 82 μ m without irradiation, and from 128 to 108 μ m at the maximum expected rate. The measured drift-tube efficiency agrees with the expectation from the dead time of the read-out electronics up to the maximum expected rate.
3135633
Operation of the ATLAS muon drift-tube chambers at high background rates and in magnetic fields
In the ATLAS muon spectrometer, large drift-tube chambers are used for precision tracking. The chambers will be operated at a high neutron and /spl gamma/ background resulting in count rates of up to 500 Hz cm/sup -2/ corresponding to 300 kHz per tube. The spatial resolution of the drift tubes is degraded from 82 /spl mu/m without background to 108 /spl mu/m at 500 Hz cm/sup -2/ background count rate. Due to afterpulsing in the Ar/CO/sub 2/ gas mixture used in the drift tubes, ionizing radiation causes more than one hit in a tube within the maximum drift time of about 800 ns which is expected for magnetic field strengths around 1.2 T. In order to limit the count rate, the drift tubes are read out with an artificial dead time of 790 ns which causes an efficiency loss of 23% at a rate of 300 kHz per tube. The space-to-drift-time relationship of the tubes varies with background rate, temperature, and magnetic field strength. The mean magnetic field strength in a muon chamber is 0.4 T on the average, but may vary by up to 0.4 T within a chamber. The space-to-drift-time relationship must therefore be determined in short time intervals with an accuracy better than 20 /spl mu/m using muon tracks and applying corrections for measured magnetic field variations.
120597551
Influence of the magnetic field on the gating of a time projection chamber
A large cylindrical time projection chamber (TPC 90), 60 cm in diameter, a driftlength of 130 cm, as well as a smaller test-chamber of 30 × 30 × 15 cm3 have been used to investigate the effects of the magnetic field on the operation of a gated grid. The magnetic field is found to affect strongly the drifting electrons, but not for the positive ions. The results can be well explained by the specific configuration of the combined EandB fields near the gating grid wires and in the region of the proportional wires.
37405387
Power supply system for the ATLAS muon spectrometer: design specifications and test
In this paper, the problem of the low-voltage (LV) and high-voltage (HV) power supply distribution of the monitored drift tubes (MDT) detector is addressed. Due to the high number of channels (1168 for low voltage and twice for high voltage) involved and to the dimension of the apparatus, these power supply systems are very complicated. Both systems are made of three different parts: a power generator, a system controller, and an active distributor. The first two parts will be localized in the cavern close to the experimental area, so they are subjected to standard environmental conditions. The third part (the active distributor) will be placed in the experimental area on the platforms just outside the detector, where the environmental conditions are more severe, due to the presence of magnetic field (about 0.08 T) and radiations. In the paper, we present the design specifications and tests for the power supply systems.