Title Details

Marcello Abbresciais professor at the Bari University, Italy, and associate researcher for the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics. Since the beginning of his scientific career he has been working on gaseous detectors and specifically Resistive Plate Chambers. He is member of the CMS collaboration at CERN, where he contributed to design and build the CMS/RPC system, being also responsible for its upgrade toward the High Luminosity phase of LHC. He developed one of the first models describing RPC behavior, and lead researches on RPC for applications in humanitarian demining. He is also coordinator of the Extreme Energy Events collaboration, and author or co-author of more than 700 papers on particle physics or instrumentation for particle physics.

Vladimir Peskov is chief scientist at the Institute for Chemical Physics Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). Having obtained his academic degrees from the Institute of Physical Problems RAS in Moscow, he worked in the Physics Laboratory RAS led by P.L. Kapitza where he discovered and studied a new type of plasma instability. In 1986 he obtained an Associate Scientist position at CERN in G. Charpak's group and later spent most of his career working at various Scientific Institutions (CERN, Fermi National Laboratory, NASA and the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden) on the instrumentation for high energy physics, astrophysics and medicine. He is author or co-author of more than 200 publications, three scientific books and twelve international patents.

Paulo Fonte is professor at the Institute of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra and senior researcher at the Laboratory for Instrumentation and High Energy Particle Physics, Portugal. Made his doctoral work at CERN in G. Charpak's group, collaborating closely since then with V. Peskov in many detector-related themes. He has been deeply involved in the original development of timing Resistive Plate Chambers and his group has pursued the extension of this technology towards new capabilities and applications, being responsible for the RPC TOF wall of the HADES experiment. He is member of the HADES and RD51 international collaborations. With a special interest in detector physics, he authored or co-authored about 180 publications.

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xi

Abbreviations xiii

Introduction 1

1 “Classical” Gaseous Detectors and Their Limits 5

1.1 Ionization Chambers 5

1.2 Single-Wire Counters Operated in Avalanche Mode 7

1.3 Avalanche and Discharge Development in Uniform or Cylindrical Electric Fields 8

1.3.1 Fast Breakdown 14

1.3.2 Slow Breakdown 16

1.4 Pulsed Spark and Streamer Detectors 16

1.5 Multiwire Proportional Chambers 18

1.6 A New Idea for Discharge Quenching and Localization 20

References 24

2 Historical Developments Leading toModern Resistive Gaseous Detectors 27

2.1 Introduction: the Importance of the Parallel-Plate Geometry 27

2.2 First Parallel-Plate Counters 30

2.3 Further Developments 34

2.4 The First RPC Prototypes 35

2.5 Pestov’s Planar Spark Chambers 37

2.6 Wire-Type Detectors with Resistive Cathodes 41

References 42

3 Basics of Resistive Plate Chambers 45

3.1 Introduction 45

3.2 Santonico and Cardarelli’s RPCs 45

3.3 Glass RPCs 52

3.4 Avalanche and Streamer Modes 55

3.4.1 Streamer Mode 55

3.4.2 Avalanche Mode 60

3.5 Signal Development 64

3.5.1 Signal Formation 64

3.5.2 Charge Distribution 74

3.5.3 Efficiency 76

3.5.4 Time Resolution 78

3.5.5 Position Resolution 80

3.6 Choice of Gas Mixtures 81

3.6.1 Main Requirements for RPC Gas Mixtures 81

3.6.2 Quenching Gas Mixtures 84

3.6.2.1 General Information 84

3.6.2.2 Historical Review about Gas Mixtures for Inhibiting Photon Feedback 86

3.6.2.3 Some Considerations on Delayed Afterpulses 90

3.7 Current in RPCs 92

3.8 Dark Counting Rate 96

3.9 Effects of Temperature and Pressure 99

References 106

4 Further Developments in Resistive Plate Chambers 111

4.1 Double Gap RPCs 111

4.2 Wide-Gap RPCs 113

4.3 The Multi-gap RPCs 117

4.4 “Space-Charge” Effects 127

4.5 Review of AnalyticalModels of RPC Behavior 129

4.5.1 Electron Avalanches Deeply Affected by Space Charge 131

4.5.2 Highly Variable Currents Flowing through Resistive Materials 134

4.5.3 Electrical Induction through Materials with Varied Electrical Properties 135

4.5.4 Propagation of Fast Signals in Multiconductor Transmission Lines 135

4.6 Timing RPCs 138

4.7 The Importance of Front-End Electronics for Operation in Streamer and Avalanche Modes 143

4.8 Attempts to Increase Sensitivity via Secondary Electron Emission 143

References 154

5 Resistive Plate Chambers in High Energy Physics Experiments 161

5.1 Early Experiments Using RPCs 161

5.2 RPCs for the L3 Experiment at LEP 169

5.3 The Instrumented Flux Return of the BaBar Experiment 172

5.4 The ARGO-YBJ Detector 176

5.5 The “BIG” Experiments: ATLAS, ALICE, and CMS at LHC 180

5.5.1 ATLAS 182

5.5.2 CMS 187

5.5.3 Some CommonThemes to ATLAS and CMS 193

5.5.4 ALICE 193

5.6 The RPC-TOF System of the HADES Experiment 195

5.7 The Extreme Energy Events Experiment 201

5.8 Other Experiments 206

References 208

6 Materials and Aging in Resistive Plate Chambers 211

6.1 Materials 211

6.1.1 Glasses and Glass RPCs 213

6.1.2 Bakelite 221

6.1.3 Methods to Measure Bakelite Resistivity 223

6.1.4 Semiconductive Materials 228

6.2 Aging Effects 229

6.2.1 Aging in RPCs Operated in StreamerMode 229

6.2.1.1 L3 and Belle 229

6.2.1.2 Experience Gained in BaBar 230

6.2.2 Melamine and Bakelite RPCs without linseed oil treatment 235

6.3 Aging Studies of RPC Prototypes Operated in Avalanche Mode Designed for the LHC Experiments 237

6.3.1 Temperature Effects 240

6.3.2 Effects of HF and Other Chemical Species 241

6.3.3 Other Possible Changes in Bakelite Electrodes 244

6.3.4 Closed-Loop Gas Systems for LHC RPCs 244

6.4 Aging Studies on Multi-Gap RPCs 246

References 248

7 Advanced Designs: High-Rate, High-Spatial Resolution Resistive Plate Chambers 253

7.1 The Issue of Rate Capability 253

7.2 The “Static” Model of RPCs at High Rate 257

7.3 The “Dynamic” Model of RPCs at High Rate 261

7.4 The Upgrade of the Muon Systems of ATLAS and CMS 266

7.5 Special High Rate RPCs 269

7.5.1 High-Rate, High-Position Resolution RPCs 276

7.6 High-Position Resolution Timing RPCs 279

References 282

8 New Developments in the Family of Gaseous Detectors:Micropattern Detectors with Resistive Electrodes 285

8.1 “Classical” Micropattern Detectors with Metallic Electrodes 285

8.2 Spark-Proven GEM-like Detectors with Resistive Electrodes 289

8.3 Resistive Micromesh Detectors 294

8.4 Resistive Microstrip Detectors 298

8.5 Resistive Micro-Pixel Detectors 300

8.6 Resistive Microhole-Microstrip and Microstrip-Microdot Detectors 301

References 304

9 Applications beyond High Energy Physics and Current Trends 307

9.1 Positron Emission Tomography with RPCs 307

9.2 Thermal Neutron Detection with RPCs 310

9.3 Muon Tomography and Applications for Homeland Security 314

9.4 X-Ray Imaging 322

9.5 Cost-Efficient Radon Detectors Based on Resistive GEMs 326

9.6 Resistive GEMs for UV Photon Detection 331

9.6.1 CsI-Based Resistive GEMs for RICH 332

9.6.2 Flame and Spark Detection and Visualization with Resistive GEMs 337

9.7 Cryogenic Detectors with resistive electrodes 338

9.8 Digital Calorimetry with RPCs 341

References 344

Conclusions and Perspectives 349

A Some Guidelines for RPC Fabrication 353

A.1 Assembling of Bakelite RPCs 353

A.2 Assembling of Glass RPCs 356

A.3 Assembling of Glass MRPCs 361

References 365

Glossary 367

Index 373