Development of an advanced modular setup for the on beam characterization of oriented crystals

Recently, the particle physics community has put an increasing effort in developing radiation detectors and equipment based on oriented crystals. A key feature that distinguishes an oriented crystal from the ordinary matter is the reduction of the radiation length (X0) seen by electrons, positrons and photons crossing the lattice along one of its symmetry axes. This effect has been experimentally observed only in the last few decades and with samples limited in number, composition and length. In order to characterize a variety of oriented crystals with a standardized procedure, the STORM Collaboration has developed an advanced modular setup, which allows to study the features of any crystal sample with both electron (or positron) and photon beams. This contribution describes the key elements of this setup, namely silicon strip tracking detectors, plastic scintillators, Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPMs) coupled to the crystal under test, a photon calorimeter and an electromagnetic spectrometer

Beam test, simulation, and performance evaluation of PbF2_2 and PWO-UF crystals with SiPM readout for a semi-homogeneous calorimeter prototype with longitudinal segmentation

Crilin (Crystal Calorimeter with Longitudinal Information) is a semi-homogeneous, longitudinally segmented electromagnetic calorimeter based on high-$Z$, ultra-fast crystals with UV-extended SiPM readout. The Crilin design has been proposed as a candidate solution for both a future Muon Collider barrel ECAL and for the Small Angle Calorimeter of the HIKE experiment. As a part of the Crilin development program, we have carried out beam tests of small ($10\times10\times40$~mm$^3$) lead fluoride (PbF$_2$) and ultra-fast lead tungstate (PbWO$_4$, PWO) crystals with 120~GeV electrons at the CERN SPS to study the light yield, timing response, and systematics of light collection with a proposed readout scheme. For a single crystal of PbF$_2$, corresponding to a single Crilin cell, a time resolution of better than 25~ps is obtained for $>$3 GeV of deposited energy. For a single cell of \pwo, a time resolution of better than 45~ps is obtained for the same range of deposited energy. This timing performance fully satisfies the design requirements for the Muon Collider and HIKE experiments. Further optimizations of the readout scheme and crystal surface preparation are expected to bring further improvements

Development of an advanced modular setup for the on beam characterization of oriented crystals

Recently, the particle physics community has put an increasing effort in developing radiation detectors and equipment based on oriented crystals. A key feature that distinguishes an oriented crystal from the ordinary matter is the reduction of the radiation length (X0) seen by electrons, positrons and photons crossing the lattice along one of its symmetry axes. This effect has been experimentally observed only in the last few decades and with samples limited in number, composition and length. In order to characterize a variety of oriented crystals with a standardized procedure, the STORM Collaboration has developed an advanced modular setup, which allows to study the features of any crystal sample with both electron (or positron) and photon beams. This contribution describes the key elements of this setup, namely silicon strip tracking detectors, plastic scintillators, Silicon Photo-Multipliers (SiPMs) coupled to the crystal under test, a photon calorimeter and an electromagnetic spectrometer

Development of an advanced modular setup for the on beam characterization of oriented crystals

Recently, the particle physics community has put an increasing effort in developing radiation detectors and equipment based on oriented crystals. A key feature that distinguishes an oriented crystal from the ordinary matter is the reduc-tion of the radiation length (X0) seen by electrons, positrons and photons crossing the lattice along one of its symmetry axes. This effect has been experimentally ob-served only in the last few decades and with samples limited in number, composition and length. In order to characterize a variety of oriented crystals with a standardized procedure, the STORM Collaboration has developed an advanced modular setup, which allows to study the features of any crystal sample with both electron (or positron) and photon beams. This contribution describes the key elements of this setup, namely silicon strip tracking detectors, plastic scintillators, Silicon Photo -Multipliers (SiPMs) coupled to the crystal under test, a photon calorimeter and an electromagnetic spectrometer

A highly-compact and ultra-fast homogeneous electromagnetic calorimeter based on oriented lead tungstate crystals

Progress in high-energy physics has been closely tied to the development of high-performance electromagnetic calorimeters. Recent experiments have demonstrated the possibility to significantly accelerate the development of electromagnetic showers inside scintillating crystals typically used in homogeneous calorimeters based on scintillating crystals when the incident beam is aligned with a crystallographic axis to within a few mrad. In particular, a reduction of the radiation length has been measured when ultrarelativistic electron and photon beams were incident on a high-Z scintillator crystal along one of its main axes. Here, we propose the possibility to exploit this physical effect for the design of a new type of compact e.m. calorimeter, based on oriented ultra-fast lead tungstate (PWO-UF) crystals, with a significant reduction in the depth needed to contain electromagnetic showers produced by high-energy particles with respect to the state-of-the-art. We report results from tests of the crystallographic quality of PWO-UF samples via high-resolution X-ray diffraction and photoelastic analysis. We then describe a proof-of-concept calorimeter geometry defined with a Geant4 model including the shower development in oriented crystals. Finally, we discuss the experimental techniques needed for the realization of a matrix of scintillator crystals oriented along a specific crystallographic direction. Since the angular acceptance for e.m. shower acceleration depends little on the particle energy, while the decrease of the shower length remains pronounced at very high energy, an oriented crystal calorimeter will open the way for applications at the maximum energies achievable in current and future experiments. Such applications span from forward calorimeters, to compact beam dumps for the search for light dark matter, to source-pointing space-borne γ-ray telescopes, to decrease the size and the cost of the calorimeter needed to fully contain e.m. showers initiated by GeV to TeV particles

Influence of the Water Content on the Diffusion Coefficients of Li⁺ and Water across Naphthalenic Based Copolyimide Cation-Exchange Membranes

The transport of lithium ions in cation-exchange membranes based on sulfonated copolyimide membranes is reported. Diffusion coefficients of lithium are estimated as a function of the water content in membranes by using pulsed field gradient (PFG) NMR and electrical conductivity techniques. It is found that the lithium transport slightly decreases with the diminution of water for membranes with water content lying in the range 14 < λ < 26.5, where λ is the number of molecules of water per fixed sulfonate group. For λ < 14, the value of the diffusion coefficient of lithium experiences a sharp decay with the reduction of water in the membranes. The dependence of the diffusion of lithium on the humidity of the membranes calculated from conductivity data using Nernst–Planck type equations follows a trend similar to that observed by NMR. The possible explanation of the fact that the Haven ratio is higher than the unit is discussed. The diffusion of water estimated by 1H PFG-NMR in membranes neutralized with lithium decreases as λ decreases, but the drop is sharper in the region where the decrease of the diffusion of protons of water also undergoes considerable reduction. The diffusion of lithium ions computed by full molecular dynamics is similar to that estimated by NMR. However, for membranes with medium and low concentration of water, steady state conditions are not reached in the computations and the diffusion coefficients obtained by MD simulation techniques are overestimated. The curves depicting the variation of the diffusion coefficient of water estimated by NMR and full dynamics follow parallel trends, though the values of the diffusion coefficient in the latter case are somewhat higher. The WAXS diffractograms of fully hydrated membranes exhibit the ionomer peak at q = 2.8 nm⁻1, the peak being shifted to higher q as the water content of the membranes decreases. The diffractograms present additional peaks at higher q, common to wet and dry membranes, but the peaks are better resolved in the wet membranes. The ionomer peak is not detected in the diffractograms of dry membranes.The authors acknowledge financial support provided by the DGICYT (Dirección General de Investigación Cientifíca y Tecnológica) through Grant MAT2011-29174-C02-02

Identification and Structural Characterization of a New Three-Finger Toxin Hemachatoxin from Hemachatus haemachatus Venom

10.1371/journal.pone.0048112PLoS ONE710