PICOSEC: Charged particle timing at sub-25 picosecond precision with a Micromegas based detector

J. Bortfeldt (1) , F. Brunbauer (1) , C. David (1) , D. Desforge (2) , G. Fanourakis (3) , J. Franchi (1) , M. Gallinaro (4) , I. Giomataris (2) , D. Gonzalez-Diaz (5) , T. Gustavsson (6) , C. Guyot (2) , F. Iguaz (2) , M. Kebbiri (2) , P. Legou (2) , J. Liu (7) , M. Lupberger (1) , O. Maillard (2) , I. Manthos (8) , H. Muller (1) , V. Niaouris (8) , E. Oliveri (1) , T. Papaevangelou (2) , K. Paraschou (8) , M. Pomorski (9) , B. Qi (7) , F. Resnati (1) , L. Ropelewski (1) , D. Sampsonidis (8) , T. Schneider (1) , P. Schwemling (2) , L. Sohl (1) , M. Van Stenis (1) , P. Thuiner (1) , Y. Tsipolitis (10) , S. Tzamarias (8) , R. Veenhof (1) , X. Wang (7) , S. White (1) , Z. Zhang (7) , Y. Zhou (7)

1 CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research
2 IRFU - Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers
3 NCSR - National Center for Scientific Research "Demokritos"
4 Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa
5 USC - Universidade de Santiago de Compostela [Spain]
6 DICO - Dynamique et Interactions en phase Condensée
7 USTC - University of Science and Technology of China [Hefei]
8 Department of Physics [Thessaloniki]
9 LCD-LIST - Laboratoire Capteurs Diamant
10 NTUA - National Technical University of Athens [Athens]

The prospect of pileup induced backgrounds at the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) has stimulated intense interest in developing technologies for charged particle detection with accurate timing at high rates. The required accuracy follows directly from the nominal interaction distribution within a bunch crossing ( cm, ps). A time resolution of the order of 20–30 ps would lead to significant reduction of these backgrounds. With this goal, we present a new detection concept called PICOSEC, which is based on a “two-stage” Micromegas detector coupled to a Cherenkov radiator and equipped with a photocathode. First results obtained with this new detector yield a time resolution of 24 ps for 150 GeV muons, and 76 ps for single photoelectrons

Keywords: Picosecond timing; Photocathodes; Micromegas; Timing algorithms; MPGD

Domains: Instrumentation and Detectors [physics.ins-det]; Theoretical and/or physical chemistry; Mechanics of materials [physics.class-ph]; Chemical Physics [physics.chem-ph]

J. Bortfeldt, F. Brunbauer, C. David, D. Desforge, G. Fanourakis, et al.. PICOSEC: Charged particle timing at sub-25 picosecond precision with a Micromegas based detector. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 2018, 903, pp.317 - 325. ⟨10.1016/j.nima.2018.04.033⟩. ⟨cea-01894436⟩