Outdoor systems performance and upgrade

Over the last two decades, the possibility of using RPCs in outdoors systems has increased considerably. Our group has participated in this effort by installing several systems and continues to work on their optimization, while simultaneously studying and developing new approaches that can use RPCs in outdoor applications. In particular, four detectors were deployed in the field at the Pierre Auger Observatory in 2019 remained inactive, awaiting the commissioning of support systems. During the pandemic the detectors were left without gas flow for more thantwo years, but were recently reactivated with no major problems. The Lou Mu project combines particle physics and geophysics in order tomapmeter-scale geologic structures, using Muon Tomography. Transmission muography is sensitive to the total amount of matter crossed by the muons, allowing to separate targets of different densities. In this exploratory project, it serves to identify unconsolidated rockzones, like geological faults and ore masses around an old Pyritemine,now converted into a science center. The general goal is to compare how effective is the muographic survey when compared with the more standard geophysical techniques. The development of the RPC system used and the data from the last two years will be presented. Finally, recent advances in a large area(1m2) doubl egap-sealed RPC will be presented.

Keywords

Sealed RPCs RPC outdoor operation Low gas consumption Cosmic rays Gaseous detectors Geophysics

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/26191

Citation

Lopes, L., Andringa, S., Assis, P., Blanco, A., Carolino, N., Cerda, M. A., Clemêncio, F., Conceição, R., Cunha, O., Dobrigkeit, C., Ferreira, M., Loureiro, C., Mendes, L., Nogueira, J. C., Pereira, A., Pimenta, M., Saraiva, J., Sarmento, R., Teixeira, P., & Tomé, B. (2023). Outdoor systems performance and upgrade. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 1054, 168446. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2023.168446