Study of Resistive Micromegas in a Mixed Neutron and Photon Radiation Field

The Muon ATLAS Micromegas Activity (MAMMA) focuses on the development and testing of large-area muon detectors based on the bulk-Micromegas technology. These detectors are candidates for the upgrade of the ATLAS Muon System in view of the luminosity upgrade of Large Hadron Collider at CERN (sLHC). They will combine trigger and precision measurement capability in a single device. A novel protection scheme using resistive strips above the readout electrode has been developed. The response and sparking properties of resistive Micromegas detectors were successfully tested in a mixed (neutron and gamma) high radiation field supplied by the Tandem accelerator, at the N.C.S.R. Demokritos in Athens. Monte-Carlo studies have been employed to study the effect of 5.5 MeV neutrons impinging on Micromegas detectors. The response of the Micromegas detectors on the photons originating from the inevitable neutron inelastic scattering on the surrounding materials of the experimental facility was also studied

Performances of Anode-resistive Micromegas for HL-LHC

Micromegas technology is a promising candidate to replace Atlas forward muon chambers -tracking and trigger- for future HL-LHC upgrade of the experiment. The increase on background and pile-up event probability requires detector performances which are currently under studies in intensive RD activities. We studied performances of four different resistive Micromegas detectors with different read-out strip pitches. These chambers were tested using \sim120 GeV momentum pions, at H6 CERN-SPS beam line in autumn 2010. For a strip pitch 500 micrometers we measure a resolution of \sim90 micrometers and a efficiency of ~98%. The track angle effect on the efficiency was also studied. Our results show that resistive techniques induce no degradation on the efficiency or resolution, with respect to the standard Micromegas. In some configuration the resistive coating is able to reduce the discharge currents at least by a factor of 100.Micromegas technology is a promising candidate to replace Atlas forward muon chambers -tracking and trigger- for future HL-LHC upgrade of the experiment. The increase on background and pile-up event probability requires detector performances which are currently under studies in intensive RD activities. We studied performances of four different resistive Micromegas detectors with different read-out strip pitches. These chambers were tested using \sim120 GeV momentum pions, at H6 CERN-SPS beam line in autumn 2010. For a strip pitch 500 micrometers we measure a resolution of \sim90 micrometers and a efficiency of \sim98%. The track angle effect on the efficiency was also studied. Our results show that resistive techniques induce no degradation on the efficiency or resolution, with respect to the standard Micromegas. In some configuration the resistive coating is able to reduce the discharge currents at least by a factor of 100.Comment: "Presented at the 2011 Hadron Collider Physics symposium (HCP-2011), Paris, France, November 14-18 2011, 3 pages, 6 figures.

A Gas Leak Rate Measurement System for the ATLAS MUON BIS-Monitored Drift Tubes

A low-cost, reliable and precise system developed for the gas leak rate measurement of the BIS-Monitored Drift Tubes (MDTs) for the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer is presented. In order to meet the BIS-MDT mass production rate, a total number of 100 tubes are tested simultaneously in this setup. The pressure drop of each one of the MDT is measured, within a typical time interval of 48 hours, via a differential manometer comparing with the pressure of a gas tight reference tube. The precision of the method implemented is based on the system temperature homogeneity, with accuracy of ÄT = 0.3 oC. For this reason, two thermally isolated boxes are used testing 50 tubes each of them, to achieve high degree of temperature uniformity and stability. After measuring several thousands of the MDTs, the developed system is confirmed to be appropriate within the specifications for testing the MDTs during the mass production

Construction and test of a 1×1 m2 Micromegas chamber for sampling hadron calorimetry at future lepton colliders

Equipe MicromegasSampling calorimeters can be finely segmented and used to detect showers with high spatial resolution. This imaging power can be exploited at future linear collider experiments where the measurement of jet energy by a Particle flow method requires optimal use of tracking and calorimeter information. Gaseous detectors can achieve high granularity and a hadron sampling calorimeter using Micromegas chambers as active elements is considered in this paper. Compared to traditional detectors using wires or resistive plates, Micromegas is free of space charge effects and could therefore show superior calorimetric performance. To test this concept, a prototype of 1×1 m2 equipped with 9216 readout pads of 1×1 cm2 has been built. Its technical and basic operational characteristics are reported

System Test of the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer in the H8 Beam at the CERN SPS

An extensive system test of the ATLAS muon spectrometer has been performed in the H8 beam line at the CERN SPS during the last four years. This spectrometer will use pressurized Monitored Drift Tube (MDT) chambers and Cathode Strip Chambers (CSC) for precision tracking, Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) for triggering in the barrel and Thin Gap Chambers (TGCs) for triggering in the end-cap region. The test set-up emulates one projective tower of the barrel (six MDT chambers and six RPCs) and one end-cap octant (six MDT chambers, A CSC and three TGCs). The barrel and end-cap stands have also been equipped with optical alignment systems, aiming at a relative positioning of the precision chambers in each tower to 30-40 micrometers. In addition to the performance of the detectors and the alignment scheme, many other systems aspects of the ATLAS muon spectrometer have been tested and validated with this setup, such as the mechanical detector integration and installation, the detector control system, the data acquisition, high level trigger software and off-line event reconstruction. Measurements with muon energies ranging from 20 to 300 GeV have allowed measuring the trigger and tracking performance of this set-up, in a configuration very similar to the final spectrometer. A special bunched muon beam with 25 ns bunch spacing, emulating the LHC bunch structure, has been used to study the timing resolution and bunch identification performance of the trigger chambers. The ATLAS first-level trigger chain has been operated with muon trigger signals for the first time

Recent results of Micromegas sDHCAL with a new readout chip

Calorimetry at future linear colliders could be based on a particle flow approach where granularity is the key to high jet energy resolution. Among different technologies, Micromegas chambers with 1 cm2 pad segmentation are studied for the active medium of a hadronic calorimeter. A chamber of 1 m2 with 9216 channels read out by a low noise front-end ASIC called MICROROC has recently been constructed and tested. Chamber design, ASIC circuitry and preliminary test beam results are reported

Multiplicity Structure of the Hadronic Final State in Diffractive Deep-Inelastic Scattering at HERA

The multiplicity structure of the hadronic system X produced in deep-inelastic processes at HERA of the type ep -> eXY, where Y is a hadronic system with mass M_Y< 1.6 GeV and where the squared momentum transfer at the pY vertex, t, is limited to |t|<1 GeV^2, is studied as a function of the invariant mass M_X of the system X. Results are presented on multiplicity distributions and multiplicity moments, rapidity spectra and forward-backward correlations in the centre-of-mass system of X. The data are compared to results in e+e- annihilation, fixed-target lepton-nucleon collisions, hadro-produced diffractive final states and to non-diffractive hadron-hadron collisions. The comparison suggests a production mechanism of virtual photon dissociation which involves a mixture of partonic states and a significant gluon content. The data are well described by a model, based on a QCD-Regge analysis of the diffractive structure function, which assumes a large hard gluonic component of the colourless exchange at low Q^2. A model with soft colour interactions is also successful.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Eur. Phys. J., error in first submission - omitted bibliograph

Low Q^2 Jet Production at HERA and Virtual Photon Structure

The transition between photoproduction and deep-inelastic scattering is investigated in jet production at the HERA ep collider, using data collected by the H1 experiment. Measurements of the differential inclusive jet cross-sections dsigep/dEt* and dsigmep/deta*, where Et* and eta* are the transverse energy and the pseudorapidity of the jets in the virtual photon-proton centre of mass frame, are presented for 0 < Q2 < 49 GeV2 and 0.3 < y < 0.6. The interpretation of the results in terms of the structure of the virtual photon is discussed. The data are best described by QCD calculations which include a partonic structure of the virtual photon that evolves with Q2.Comment: 20 pages, 5 Figure

Search for Doubly-Charged Higgs Boson Production at HERA

A search for the single production of doubly-charged Higgs bosons H^{\pm \pm} in ep collisions is presented. The signal is searched for via the Higgs decays into a high mass pair of same charge leptons, one of them being an electron. The analysis uses up to 118 pb^{-1} of ep data collected by the H1 experiment at HERA. No evidence for doubly-charged Higgs production is observed and mass dependent upper limits are derived on the Yukawa couplings h_{el} of the Higgs boson to an electron-lepton pair. Assuming that the doubly-charged Higgs only decays into an electron and a muon via a coupling of electromagnetic strength h_{e \mu} = \sqrt{4 \pi \alpha_{em}} = 0.3, a lower limit of 141 GeV on the H^{\pm\pm} mass is obtained at the 95% confidence level. For a doubly-charged Higgs decaying only into an electron and a tau and a coupling h_{e\tau} = 0.3, masses below 112 GeV are ruled out.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Searches at HERA for Squarks in R-Parity Violating Supersymmetry

A search for squarks in R-parity violating supersymmetry is performed in e^+p collisions at HERA at a centre of mass energy of 300 GeV, using H1 data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 37 pb^(-1). The direct production of single squarks of any generation in positron-quark fusion via a Yukawa coupling lambda' is considered, taking into account R-parity violating and conserving decays of the squarks. No significant deviation from the Standard Model expectation is found. The results are interpreted in terms of constraints within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), the constrained MSSM and the minimal Supergravity model, and their sensitivity to the model parameters is studied in detail. For a Yukawa coupling of electromagnetic strength, squark masses below 260 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level in a large part of the parameter space. For a 100 times smaller coupling strength masses up to 182 GeV are excluded.Comment: 32 pages, 14 figures, 3 table