This paper reports about the first Micromegas-based telescope built for applications in muon tomography. The telescope consists of four, 50×50cm2 resistive multiplexed Micromegas with a 2D layout and ...a self-triggering electronics based on the Dream chip. Thanks to the multiplexing, the four detectors were readout with a single Front-End Unit. The high voltages were provided by a dedicated card using low consumption CAEN miniaturized modules. A nano-PC (Hummingboard) ensured the HV control and monitoring coupled with a temperature feedback as well as the data acquisition and storage. The overall consumption of the instrument yielded 30W only, i.e. the equivalent of a standard bulb. The telescope was operated outside during 3.5months to image the water tower of the CEA-Saclay research center, including a 1.5-month campaign with solar panels. The development of autonomous, low consumption muon telescopes with unprecedented accuracy opens new applications in imaging as well as in the field of muon metrology.
Why do we flush gas in gaseous detectors? Procureur, S.; Attié, D.; Bouteille, S. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
03/2020, Volume:
955
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The effects and the origin of the gas degradation in a gaseous detector-based tracker are investigated. The study focused on the so-called T2K gas, which turned out to be highly sensitive to ...pollutants. In particular the H2O and O2 concentrations were monitored online in different conditions to establish their influence on the gain of the detectors. This pollution was first mitigated by a recirculating and accelerating gas system with the use of a turbine and different absorbers. Further measurements revealed that this pollution originates from a continuous permeation process through the different materials of the gas circuit. In particular, polyurethane-based gas pipes or polyester materials largely increase the level of humidity. As a direct consequence of this work, the gas autonomy of the muon telescopes currently deployed inside the Khufu’s pyramid have been dramatically improved.
The steadily increasing luminosity of the LHC requires an upgrade with high-rate and high-resolution detector technology for the inner end cap of the ATLAS muon spectrometer: the New Small Wheels ...(NSW). In order to achieve the goal of precision tracking at a hit rate of about 15 kHz/cm2 at the inner radius of the NSW, large area Micromegas quadruplets with 100µm spatial resolution per plane have been produced. IRFU, from the CEA research center of Saclay, is responsible for the production and validation of LM1 Micromegas modules. The construction, production, qualification and validation of the largest Micromegas detectors ever built are reported here. Performance results under cosmic muon characterization will also be discussed.
The performance of the first large resistive Micromegas detectors with 2D readout and genetic multiplexing is presented. These detectors have a 50×50cm2 active area and are equipped with 1024 strips ...both in X- and Y-directions. The same genetic multiplexing pattern is applied on both coordinates, resulting in the compression of signals on 2×61 readout channels. Four such detectors have been built at CERN, and extensively tested with cosmics. The resistive strip film allows for very high gain operation, compensating for the charge spread on the 2 dimensions as well as the S/N loss due to the huge, 1nF input capacitance. This film also creates a significantly different signal shape in the X- and Y-coordinates due to the charge evacuation along the resistive strips. All in all a detection efficiency above 95% is achieved with a 1cm drift gap. Though not yet optimal, the measured 300µm spatial resolution allows for very precise imaging in the field of muon tomography, and some applications of these detectors are presented.
Potential applications of muon tomography, or muography, as non-invasive scanning method have increased in the last years together with the performance of the particle detectors used for muon ...detection, known as muon telescopes. A new concept muon telescope is presented, which could enlarge even more the range of application of this technique. It is based on a compact TPC equipped with a 2D pixelized Micromegas detector with multiplexed readout. This detector will overcome some of the constraints of the instruments currently used, as they limited acceptance, while keeping other features required for muography as stability, robustness or portability. Moreover, it will be capable to reconstruct the 3D direction of the incident muons with a single instrument. With its design and features, this kind of detectors can be fitted at boreholes from where they can scan the surroundings, being an interesting technique for mining exploration, geotechnics or monitoring of dykes or bridges which has arouse the interest of industry. In a further phase it is expected to develop a network of these detectors which will allow the 3D reconstruction of the studied object by the combination of the images registered by each of the telescopes. Main features and first tests and results of this new instrument will be presented together with some studies, performed by Monte Carlo simulations, of the capabilities of this muon telescope and the analysis principle.
HARPO is a time projection chamber (TPC) demonstrator of a gamma-ray telescope and polarimeter in the MeV-GeV range, for a future space mission. We present the evolution of the TPC performance over a ...five month sealed-mode operation, by the analysis of cosmic-ray data, followed by the fast and complete recovery of the initial gas properties using a lightweight gas circulation and purification system.
ANTARES: The first undersea neutrino telescope Ageron, M.; Anghinolfi, M.; Ardid, M. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
11/2011, Volume:
656, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The ANTARES Neutrino Telescope was completed in May 2008 and is the first operational Neutrino Telescope in the Mediterranean Sea. The main purpose of the detector is to perform neutrino astronomy ...and the apparatus also offers facilities for marine and Earth sciences. This paper describes the design, the construction and the installation of the telescope in the deep sea, offshore from Toulon in France. An illustration of the detector performance is given.
Objects of the Solar System can screen the cosmic rays as seen from the Earth. In particular, the cosmic shadows of the Moon and of the Sun have been observed in the last years by very large ...observatories. The latter can reveal details on the solar activity and magnetic field, an information which can be of high interest to better understand its internal dynamics. We report here on the possibility to perform such a study with much smaller and portable instruments. A compact muon telescope of active area 50 × 50cm2 was mounted on a motorized platform and followed the Sun during more than 7 months. By selecting muons close to the horizon, the data exhibit a small muon deficit in the direction of the Sun. These results suggest that a network of muon telescopes may be an interesting tool in the future for the continuous monitoring of the solar activity.
The LUMINEU program aims at performing a pilot experiment on neutrinoless double beta decay of 100Mo using radiopure ZnMoO4 crystals operated as scintillating bolometers. Growth of high quality ...radiopure crystals is a complex task, since there are no commercially available molybdenum compounds with the required levels of purity and radioactive contamination. This paper discusses approaches to purify molybdenum and synthesize compound for high quality radiopure ZnMoO4 crystal growth. A combination of a double sublimation (with addition of zinc molybdate) with subsequent recrystallization in aqueous solutions (using zinc molybdate as a collector) was used. Zinc molybdate crystals up to 1.5 kg were grown by the low-thermal-gradient Czochralski technique, their optical, luminescent, diamagnetic, thermal and bolometric properties were tested.
The recently developed Spherical Proportional Counter 1 allows to instrument large target masses with good energy resolution and sub-keV energy threshold. The moderate cost of this detector, its ...simplicity and robustness, makes this technology a promising approach for many domains of physics and applications, like dark matter detection and low energy neutrino searches. Detailed Monte Carlo simulations are essential to evaluate the background level expected at the sub-keV energy regime. The simulated background here, it refers to the contribution of the construction material of the detector and the effect of the environmental gamma radiation. This detector due to its spherical shape could be also served as an optical photon detector provided it is equipped with PMTs, for Double Beta decay and Dark Matter searches. All calculations shown here are obtained using the FLUKA Monte Carlo code.
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