In this work, we present a comprehensive method to measure the gas parameters, such as the effective Townsend coefficient and electron drift velocity in homogeneous high electric fields (up to ...100kV/cm) at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. A pulsed laser facility with micro-meter spatial accuracy and picosecond pulse duration is used to ignite primary ionizations at specific positions in the gas gap of a Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) detector prototype. The gas parameters are determined solely by the RPC signals. The main component of the current standard gas for RPC is Tetrafluoroethane (R134a) which has a high Global Warming Potential. Therefore, using Tetrafluoropropene (HFO-1234ze) is under research as an eco-friendly substance. We measure the parameters of these two types of working gases. It is the first direct measurement of the gas parameters of timing RPCs under working conditions. By comparison with existing data from other investigation points, we observe a dependence of gas parameters on the pressure.
The upgrade of the CMS experiment for the high luminosity operation of the LHC comprises the replacement of the current endcap calorimeter by a high granularity sampling calorimeter (HGCAL). The ...electromagnetic section of the HGCAL is based on silicon sensors interspersed between lead and copper (or copper tungsten) absorbers. The hadronic section uses layers of stainless steel as an absorbing medium and silicon sensors as an active medium in the regions of high radiation exposure, and scintillator tiles directly readout by silicon photomultipliers in the remaining regions. As part of the development of the detector and its readout electronic components, a section of a silicon-based HGCAL prototype detector along with a section of the CALICE AHCAL prototype was exposed to muons, electrons and charged pions in beam test experiments at the H2 beamline at the CERN SPS in October 2018. The AHCAL uses the same technology as foreseen for the HGCAL but with much finer longitudinal segmentation. The performance of the calorimeters in terms of energy response and resolution, longitudinal and transverse shower profiles is studied using negatively charged pions, and is compared to GEANT4 predictions. This is the first report summarizing results of hadronic showers measured by the HGCAL prototype using beam test data.
The Compact Muon Solenoid Collaboration is designing a new high-granularity endcap calorimeter, HGCAL, to be installed later this decade. As part of this development work, a prototype system was ...built, with an electromagnetic section consisting of 14 double-sided structures, providing 28 sampling layers. Each sampling layer has an hexagonal module, where a multipad large-area silicon sensor is glued between an electronics circuit board and a metal baseplate. The sensor pads of approximately 1 cm\(^2\) are wire-bonded to the circuit board and are readout by custom integrated circuits. The prototype was extensively tested with beams at CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron in 2018. Based on the data collected with beams of positrons, with energies ranging from 20 to 300 GeV, measurements of the energy resolution and linearity, the position and angular resolutions, and the shower shapes are presented and compared to a detailed Geant4 simulation.