Author(s)

Marco Poli Lener¹, Giovanni Corradi¹, Catalina Curceanu¹, Diego Tagnani¹, Antonio Romero Vidal², Johann Zmeskal³

¹Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati dell’INFN, Frascati, Italy.
²Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
³Stefan Meyer Institute for Subatomic Physics, Vienna, Austria.

In this paper, we present the R & D activity on a new GEM-based Time Projection Chamber (GEM-TPC) detector for the inner region of the AMADEUS experiment, which is aiming to perform measurements of low-energy negative kaon interactions in nuclei at the DAΦNE e+ e- collider at LNF-INFN. A novel idea of using a GEM-TPC as a low mass target and detector at the same time comes motivated by the need of studying the low energy interactions of K- with nuclei in a complete way, tracking and identifying all of the produced particles. Even more, what makes the experimental proposal revolutionary is the possibility of using different gaseous targets without any other substantial intervention on the experimental setup, making it a flexible multipurpose device. This new detection technique applied to the nuclear physics requires the use of low-radiation length materials and very pure light gases such as Hydrogen, Deuterium, Helium-3, Helium-4, etc. In order to evaluate the GEM-TPC performances, a 10 × 10 cm² prototype with a drift gap of 15 cm has been realized. The detector was tested at the πM1 beam facility of the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) with low momentum pions and protons. Detection efficiency and spatial resolution, as a function of gas mixture, gas gain and ionazing particle, are reported and discussed.

GEM, TPC, Tracking, Particle Identification

Poli Lener, M. , Corradi, G. , Curceanu, C. , Tagnani, D. , Vidal, A. and Zmeskal, J. (2015) Performances of an Active Target GEM-Based TPC for the AMADEUS Experiment. Modern Instrumentation, 4, 32-41. doi: 10.4236/mi.2015.43004.