Large-Scale Production of Monitored Drift Tube Chambers for the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer

Precision drift tube chambers with a sense wire positioning accuracy of better than 20 microns are under construction for the ATLAS muon spectrometer. 70% of the 88 large chambers for the outermost layer of the central part of the spectrometer have been assembled. Measurements during chamber construction of the positions of the sense wires and of the sensors for the optical alignment monitoring system demonstrate that the requirements for the mechanical precision of the chambers are fulfilled

Performance of the ATLAS Precision Muon Chambers under LHC Operating Conditions

For the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS detector at the large hadron collider (LHC), large drift chambers consisting of 6 to 8 layers of pressurized drift tubes are used for precision tracking covering an active area of 5000 m2 in the toroidal field of superconducting air core magnets. The chambers have to provide a spatial resolution of 41 microns with Ar:CO2 (93:7) gas mixture at an absolute pressure of 3 bar and gas gain of 2?104. The environment in which the chambers will be operated is characterized by high neutron and background with counting rates of up to 100 per square cm and second. The resolution and efficiency of a chamber from the serial production for ATLAS has been investigated in a 100 GeV muon beam at photon irradiation rates as expected during LHC operation. A silicon strip detector telescope was used as external reference in the beam. The spatial resolution of a chamber is degraded by 4 ?m at the highest background rate. The detection efficiency of the drift tubes is unchanged under irradiation. A tracking efficiency of 98% at the highest rates has been demonstrated

Resolution and Efficiency of the ATLAS Muon Drift-Tube Chambers at High Background Rates

The resolution and efficiency of a precision drift-tube chamber for the ATLAS muon spectrometer with final read-out electronics was tested at the Gamma Irradiation Facility at CERN in a 100 GeV muon beam and at photon irradiation rates of up to 990 Hz/square cm which corresponds to twice the highest background rate expected in ATLAS. A silicon strip detector telescope was used as external reference in the beam. The pulse-height measurement of the read-out electronics was used to perform time-slewing corrections which lead to an improvement of the average drift-tube resolution from 104 microns to 82 microns without irradiation and from 128 microns to 108 microns at the maximum expected rate. The measured drift-tube efficiency agrees with the expectation from the dead time of the read-out electronics up to the maximum expected rate

Two-point density correlations of quasicondensates in free expansion

We measure the two-point density correlation function of freely expanding quasicondensates in the weakly interacting quasi-one-dimensional (1D) regime. While initially suppressed in the trap, density fluctuations emerge gradually during expansion as a result of initial phase fluctuations present in the trapped quasicondensate. Asymptotically, they are governed by the thermal coherence length of the system. Our measurements take place in an intermediate regime where density correlations are related to near-field diffraction effects and anomalous correlations play an important role. Comparison with a recent theoretical approach described by Imambekov et al. yields good agreement with our experimental results and shows that density correlations can be used for thermometry of quasicondensates.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, minor change

Construction and Test of MDT Chambers for the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer

The Monitored Drift Tube (MDT) chambers for the muon spectrometer of the AT- LAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) consist of 3-4 layers of pressurized drift tubes on either side of a space frame carrying an optical monitoring system to correct for deformations. The full-scale prototype of a large MDT chamber has been constructed with methods suitable for large-scale production. X-ray measurements at CERN showed a positioning accuracy of the sense wires in the chamber of better than the required 20 ?microns (rms). The performance of the chamber was studied in a muon beam at CERN. Chamber production for ATLAS now has started

NMR Imaging of the honeybee brain

NMR microscopy provides non-invasively distinct soft-tissue contrast in small biological samples. We were able to visualize the three-dimensional structure of the honeybee brain in its natural shape in the intact head capsule. Thus, in addition to acquiring detailed information about the shapes and volumes of the different brain compartments, we were able to show their relative orientations toward each other within the head capsule. Since the brain was lightly fixed but not dehydrated, and stayed attached to the head capsule and its internal structures, the NMR experiments exhibited larger volumes and a more natural stereo geometry of the various brain structures compared to confocal laser microscopy experiments on dissected, dehydrated and cleared brains. Abbreviation: / CLM: confocal laser microscopy NMR: nuclear magnetic resonanc

Construction and Test of the Precision Drift Chambers for the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer

The Monitored Drift Tube (MDT) chambers for the muon spectrometer of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) consist of 3-4 layers of pressurised drift tubes on either side of a space frame carrying an optical deformation monitoring system. The chambers have to provide a track position resolution of 40 microns with a single-tube resolution of at least 80 microns and a sense wire positioning accu- racy of 20 ?microns (rms). The feasibility was demonstrated with the full-scale prototype of one of the largest MDT chambers with 432 drift tubes of 3.8 m length. For the ATLAS muon spectrometer, 88 chambers of this type have to be built. The first chamber has been completed with a wire positioning accuracy of 14 microns (rms)

Humanized hemato-lymphoid system mice

Over the last decades, incrementally improved xenograft mouse models, supporting the engraftment and development of a human hemato-lymphoid system, have been developed and now represent an important research tool in the field. The most significant contributions made by means of humanized mice are the identification of normal and leukemic hematopoietic stem cells, the characterization of the human hematopoietic hierarchy, and their use as preclinical therapy models for malignant hematopoietic disorders. Successful xenotransplantation depends on three major factors: tolerance by the mouse host, correct spatial location, and appropriately cross-reactive support and interaction factors such as cytokines and major histocompatibility complex molecules. Each of these can be modified. Experimental approaches include the genetic modification of mice to faithfully express human support factors as non-cross-reactive cytokines, to create free niche space, the co-transplantation of human mesenchymal stem cells, the implantation of humanized ossicles or other stroma, and the implantation of human thymic tissue. Besides the source of hematopoietic cells, the conditioning regimen and the route of transplantation also significantly affect human hematopoietic development in vivo. We review here the achievements, most recent developments, and the remaining challenges in the generation of pre-clinically-predictive systems for human hematology and immunology, closely resembling the human situation in a xenogeneic mouse environment

Two-point phase correlations of a one-dimensional bosonic Josephson junction

We realize a one-dimensional Josephson junction using quantum degenerate Bose gases in a tunable double well potential on an atom chip. Matter wave interferometry gives direct access to the relative phase field, which reflects the interplay of thermally driven fluctuations and phase locking due to tunneling. The thermal equilibrium state is characterized by probing the full statistical distribution function of the two-point phase correlation. Comparison to a stochastic model allows to measure the coupling strength and temperature and hence a full characterization of the system

Single-particle-sensitive imaging of freely propagating ultracold atoms

We present a novel imaging system for ultracold quantum gases in expansion. After release from a confining potential, atoms fall through a sheet of resonant excitation laser light and the emitted fluorescence photons are imaged onto an amplified CCD camera using a high numerical aperture optical system. The imaging system reaches an extraordinary dynamic range, not attainable with conventional absorption imaging. We demonstrate single-atom detection for dilute atomic clouds with high efficiency where at the same time dense Bose-Einstein condensates can be imaged without saturation or distortion. The spatial resolution can reach the sampling limit as given by the 8 \mu m pixel size in object space. Pulsed operation of the detector allows for slice images, a first step toward a 3D tomography of the measured object. The scheme can easily be implemented for any atomic species and all optical components are situated outside the vacuum system. As a first application we perform thermometry on rubidium Bose-Einstein condensates created on an atom chip.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures. v2: as publishe