The effect of the displacement damage on the Charge Collection Efficiency in Silicon Drift Detectors for the LOFT satellite

The technology of Silicon Drift Detectors (SDDs) has been selected for the two instruments aboard the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing (LOFT) space mission. LOFT underwent a three year long assessment phase as candidate for the M3 launch opportunity within the "Cosmic Vision 2015 -- 2025" long-term science plan of the European Space Agency. During the LOFT assessment phase, we studied the displacement damage produced in the SDDs by the protons trapped in the Earth's magnetosphere. In a previous paper we discussed the effects of the Non Ionising Energy Losses from protons on the SDD leakage current. In this paper we report the measurement of the variation of Charge Collection Efficiency produced by displacement damage caused by protons and the comparison with the expected damage in orbit.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication by Journal of Instrumentatio

Thermal Grease Evaluation for ATLAS Upgrade Micro-Strip Detector.

The ATLAS upgrade detector foreseen at the phase 2 upgrade of LHC requires a complete new inner detector using silicon pixel and strip detectors. For both technologies, a specific mechanical and thermal design is required. Such a design may use soft thermal interfaces such as grease between the various parts. One foreseeable use would be between the cooling pipe and the thermal block allowing the strip modules to be decoupled from the mechanical and cooling structure. This note describes the technique used and the results obtained when characterizing a few grease samples. The results have been compared with thermal FEA simulations. A thermal conductivity measurement for each sample could be extracted from the measurements, with a systematic uncertainty of less than 6%. Some samples were irradiated to the expected fluence at sLHC and their resulting thermal conductivity compared with the non-irradiated samples

Penetrating particle ANalyzer (PAN)

PAN is a scientific instrument suitable for deep space and interplanetary missions. It can precisely measure and monitor the flux, composition, and direction of highly penetrating particles ($> \sim$100 MeV/nucleon) in deep space, over at least one full solar cycle (~11 years). The science program of PAN is multi- and cross-disciplinary, covering cosmic ray physics, solar physics, space weather and space travel. PAN will fill an observation gap of galactic cosmic rays in the GeV region, and provide precise information of the spectrum, composition and emission time of energetic particle originated from the Sun. The precise measurement and monitoring of the energetic particles is also a unique contribution to space weather studies. PAN will map the flux and composition of penetrating particles, which cannot be shielded effectively, precisely and continuously, providing valuable input for the assessment of the related health risk, and for the development of an adequate mitigation strategy. PAN has the potential to become a standard on-board instrument for deep space human travel. PAN is based on the proven detection principle of a magnetic spectrometer, but with novel layout and detection concept. It will adopt advanced particle detection technologies and industrial processes optimized for deep space application. The device will require limited mass (~20 kg) and power (~20 W) budget. Dipole magnet sectors built from high field permanent magnet Halbach arrays, instrumented in a modular fashion with high resolution silicon strip detectors, allow to reach an energy resolution better than 10\% for nuclei from H to Fe at 1 GeV/n

Proposal for SPS beam time for the baby MIND and TASD neutrino detector prototypes

The design, construction and testing of neutrino detector prototypes at CERN are ongoing activities. This document reports on the design of solid state baby MIND and TASD detector prototypes and outlines requirements for a test beam at CERN to test these, tentatively planned on the H8 beamline in the North Area, which is equipped with a large aperture magnet. The current proposal is submitted to be considered in light of the recently approved projects related to neutrino activities with the SPS in the North Area in the medium term 2015-2020

Synchronization of the Distributed Readout Frontend Electronics of the Baby MIND Detector

Baby MIND is a new downstream muon range detector for the WGASCI experiment. This article discusses the distributed readout system and its timing requirements. The paper presents the design of the synchronization subsystem and the results of its test

A PMT-Block test bench

The front-end electronics of the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter (Tile Cal) is housed in a unit, called {\it PMT-Block}. The PMT-Block is a compact instrument comprising a light mixer, a PMT together with its divider and a {\it 3-in-1} card, which provides shaping, amplification and integration for the signals. This instrument needs to be qualified before being assembled on the detector. A PMT-Block test bench has been developed for this purpose. This test bench is a system which allows fast, albeit accurate enough, measurements of the main properties of a complete PMT-Block. The system, both hardware and software, and the protocol used for the PMT-Blocks characterisation are described in detail in this report. The results obtained in the test of about 10000 PMT-Blocks needed for the instrumentation of the ATLAS (LHC-CERN) hadronic Tile Calorimeter are also reported.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figure

Baby MIND: A magnetised spectrometer for the WAGASCI experiment

The WAGASCI experiment being built at the J-PARC neutrino beam line will measure the difference in cross sections from neutrinos interacting with a water and scintillator targets, in order to constrain neutrino cross sections, essential for the T2K neutrino oscillation measurements. A prototype Magnetised Iron Neutrino Detector (MIND), called Baby MIND, is being constructed at CERN to act as a magnetic spectrometer behind the main WAGASCI target to be able to measure the charge and momentum of the outgoing muon from neutrino charged current interactions.Comment: Poster presented at NuPhys2016 (London, 12-14 December 2016). Title + 4 pages, LaTeX, 6 figure

Internal alignment and position resolution of the silicon tracker of DAMPE determined with orbit data

The DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) is a space-borne particle detector designed to probe electrons and gamma-rays in the few GeV to 10 TeV energy range, as well as cosmic-ray proton and nuclei components between 10 GeV and 100 TeV. The silicon-tungsten tracker-converter is a crucial component of DAMPE. It allows the direction of incoming photons converting into electron-positron pairs to be estimated, and the trajectory and charge (Z) of cosmic-ray particles to be identified. It consists of 768 silicon micro-strip sensors assembled in 6 double layers with a total active area of 6.6 m$^2$. Silicon planes are interleaved with three layers of tungsten plates, resulting in about one radiation length of material in the tracker. Internal alignment parameters of the tracker have been determined on orbit, with non-showering protons and helium nuclei. We describe the alignment procedure and present the position resolution and alignment stability measurements

Baby MIND Experiment Construction Status

Baby MIND is a magnetized iron neutrino detector, with novel design features, and is planned to serve as a downstream magnetized muon spectrometer for the WAGASCI experiment on the T2K neutrino beam line in Japan. One of the main goals of this experiment is to reduce systematic uncertainties relevant to CP-violation searches, by measuring the neutrino contamination in the anti-neutrino beam mode of T2K. Baby MIND is currently being constructed at CERN, and is planned to be operational in Japan in October 2017.Comment: Poster presented at NuPhys2016 (London, 12-14 December 2016). 4 pages, LaTeX, 7 figure