Berlin 2005 – scientific programme

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HK: Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 35: Instrumentation und Anwendungen

HK 35.1: Group Report

Tuesday, March 8, 2005, 16:30–17:00, TU MA144

The ALICE TPC - An Innovative Device for Heavy-Ion Collisions at LHC — •H.R. Schmidt¹, P. Braun-Munzinger¹, U. Frankenfeld¹, C. Garabatos¹, P. Glässel², H. Öschler³, R. Renfordt⁴, J. Stachel², H. Stelzer¹, H.K. Soltveit², D. Vranic¹, J. Wiechula¹ und B. Windelband ² — ¹Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt — ²Universität Heidelberg — ³Technische Universität Darmstadt — ⁴Universität Frankfurt

In 2007, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is scheduled to commence operations. ALICE is the only experiment at the LHC dedicated to the investigation of Pb-Pb collisions at 1248 TeV center-of-mass energy. Large secondary particle multiplicities and high rates set new demands on the design of the ALICE sub-detectors. In this contribution, we will focus on the design strategy of the ALICE Time Projection Chamber (TPC) and its innovative features: i) a high precision field cage consisting of two double-shelled containment vessels with CO₂ insulation gap built of composite materials of very low radiation length; ii) a cold", low-Z drift gas (NeCO₂) with N₂ admixture to improve its stability; iii) a cooling and temperature regulation system, which stabilizes the overall the temperature to Δ T ≤ 0.1 ^∘C; iv) highly granular readout chambers operated at very high gas gain with 557,568 readout pads; v) highly integrated front-end readout electronics with adaptive baseline restoration. The construction of the TPC components is close to completion. We will present the roadmap of the TPC installation and its commissioning until the LHC startup.