[en] A study on daily concentration changes of polycyclic aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons (PAH's and AH's), was carried out in aerosols sampled in the Ciudad Universitaria of Madrid. Samples were taken at morning and night during February and June, for short sampling times, on glass fiber filters in Hi-Vol samplers, and then extracted ultrasonically with cyclohexane. Analysis were performed by HRGC with fused-silica capillary columns. The variable traffic rate, and the strong influence during winter periods of domestic heating are characteristic of this place. The aim of this work was to evaluate diurnal and seasonal variations of selected AH and PAH in the urban area of Madrid, by using descriptive parameters, such as total concentrations of AH and PAH, characteristic profiles and predominance carbon index. From these results, it has been tried to identify emission sources of the studied hydrocarbons. (Author). 10 refs

[en] Xe–CO₂ mixtures are important alternatives to pure xenon in Time Projection Chambers (TPC) based on secondary scintillation (electroluminescence) signal amplification with applications in the important field of rare event detection such as directional dark matter, double electron capture and double beta decay detection. The addition of CO₂ to pure xenon at the level of 0.05–0.1% can reduce significantly the scale of electron diffusion from 10 mm / √m to 2.5mm / √m, with high impact on the discrimination efficiency of the events through pattern recognition of the topology of primary ionization trails. We have measured the electroluminescence (EL) yield of Xe–CO₂ mixtures, with sub-percent CO₂ concentrations. We demonstrate that the EL production is still high in these mixtures, 70% and 35% relative to that produced in pure xenon, for CO₂ concentrations around 0.05% and 0.1%, respectively. In conclusion, the contribution of the statistical fluctuations in EL production to the energy resolution increases with increasing CO₂ concentration, being smaller than the contribution of the Fano factor for concentrations below 0.1% CO₂.

[en] Here, the NEXT experiment aims at searching for the hypothetical neutrinoless double-beta decay from the ${}^{136}$Xe isotope using a high-purity xenon TPC. Efficient discrimination of the events through pattern recognition of the topology of primary ionisation tracks is a major requirement for the experiment. However, it is limited by the diffusion of electrons. It is known that the addition of a small fraction of a molecular gas to xenon reduces electron diffusion. On the other hand, the electroluminescence (EL) yield drops and the achievable energy resolution may be compromised. We have studied the effect of adding several molecular gases to xenon (CO${}_2$, CH${}_4$ and CF${}_4$) on the EL yield and energy resolution obtained in a small prototype of driftless gas proportional scintillation counter. We have compared our results on the scintillation characteristics (EL yield and energy resolution) with a microscopic simulation, obtaining the diffusion coefficients in those conditions as well. Accordingly, electron diffusion may be reduced from about 10 mm/$\sqrt{\mathrm{m}}$ for pure xenon down to 2.5 mm/$\sqrt{\mathrm{m}}$ using additive concentrations of about 0.05%, 0.2% and 0.02% for CO${}_2$, CH${}_4$ and CF${}_4$, respectively. Our results show that CF${}_4$ admixtures present the highest EL yield in those conditions, but very poor energy resolution as a result of huge fluctuations observed in the EL formation. CH${}_4$ presents the best energy resolution despite the EL yield being the lowest. The results obtained with xenon admixtures are extrapolated to the operational conditions of the NEXT-100 TPC. CO${}_2$ and CH${}_4$ show potential as molecular additives in a large xenon TPC, CH${}_4$ showing the best performance and stability to be used in the NEXT-100 TPC, with an extrapolated energy resolution of 0.4% at 2.45 MeV for concentrations below 0.4%.

[en] A framework for simulating resistive plate chambers with multi-strip readout is introduced. Various analytical approaches are developed and scrutinized by comparison with numerical solvers.

[en] Systematic measurements on the rate capability of thin MWPCs operated in Xenon, Argon and Neon mixtures using CO₂ as UV-quencher are presented. A good agreement between data and existing models has been found, allowing us to present the rate capability of MWPCs in a comprehensive way and ultimately connect it with the mobilities of the drifting ions.

[en] The Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research will use a time-of-flight (TOF) wall for hadron identification, which is at the moment planned to be based on the Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) technology. The wall will be placed at 10m distance from the target, covering an area of the order of 150 m². Over such an area, it will provide a time-of-flight resolution of 80 ps, by resorting to ca. 50000 RPC cells (in multi-strip or multi-pad configuration). Fluxes of quasi-minimum ionizing particles (γβ≥3) as high as 20 kHz/cm² can be reached in the central region, corresponding to the low polar angle/high rapidity section. We propose here a realistic design for building the TOF wall by resorting to a single technology based on low-resistivity doped glass and relying on small structural modifications of the modules developed and tested during the last two years. Latest results from the modules are summarized. A comprehensive analytic discussion on the counter performance under non-uniform beams, when neglecting non-local effects, is also presented.

[en] We present a summary of the status of the field of resistive gaseous detectors as discussed in a dedicated closing session that took place during the XI Workshop for Resistive Plate Chambers and Related Detectors held in Frascati, and especially we review the perspectives and ambitions of the community towards the XII Workshop to be held in Beijing in year 2014.

[en] We performed a time-resolved spectroscopic study of the VUV/UV scintillation of gaseous argon as a function of pressure and electric field, by means of a wavelength sensitive detector operated with different radioactive sources. Our work conveys new evidence of distinctive features of the argon light which are in contrast with the general assumption that, for particle detection purposes, the scintillation can be considered to be largely monochromatic at 128 nm (second continuum). The wavelength and time-resolved analysis of the photon emission reveal that the dominant component of the argon scintillation during the first tens of ns is in the range [160, 325] nm. This light is consistent with the third continuum emission from highly charged argon ions/molecules. This component of the scintillation is field-independent up to 25 V/cm/bar and shows a very mild dependence with pressure in the range [1, 16] bar. The dynamics of the second continuum emission is dominated by the excimer formation time, whose variation as a function of pressure has been measured. Additionally, the time and pressure-dependent features of electron-ion recombination, in the second continuum band, have been measured. This study opens new paths toward a novel particle identification technique based on the spectral information of the noble-elements scintillation light.

[en] A new kind of low-resistivity glass has been developed. Its volume resistivity is on the order of 10¹⁰ Ω cm and multi-gap resistive plate chambers (MRPCs), once assembled with it, can be operated at a charged particle flux in excess of 25 kHz/cm², with very small charge build-up at the plates. This new technology has a wide range of application in high energy physics experiments such as FAIR-CBM, LHC-ATLAS or Jlab-SOLID, to mention some. In this paper we report on results related to its long-term behavior (aging). A 6 × 2-pad CBM module has been irradiated by X-rays at a mips-equivalent flux of 15 kHz/cm², for 300 hours and for a released charge totaling 0.22 C (50 mC/cm²). Tested in an electron beam before and after exposure, no degradation of the detector performances could be appreciated. As expected, compared to common glass MRPCs, the newly developed high rate counter also responds faster to sudden irradiation.

[en] A new Long-strip Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber (LMRPC) prototype with 5 gas gaps has been developed for the Muon Telescope Detector (MTD) of the STAR experiment at RHIC in order to reduce the working High Voltage (HV) of previous design. Technical specifications related to the final infrastructure present in the experiment have motivated this effort. Its performance has been measured with cosmic rays. The efficiency of this prototype can reach 98% and the time resolution is around 95 ps. It shows a good uniformity among strips. The noise level is less than 0.2 Hz/cm². The signal transmission and crosstalk of the modules was measured with a vector network analyzer, showing a good match with simulations within the amplifier bandwidth. A new cosmic-ray test system with long scintillators has been developed to accelerate the Quality Control (QC) process during the mass production of STAR-MTD. A selection of perpendicular cosmic-ray events for more accurate evaluation of the time resolution is achieved. The time resolution with this method is better, albeit with larger error, than the result obtained without any selection. A new spacer is used, resulting in a much reduced streamer ratio at comparable fields. Thirty-two modules have been built with the new spacer by the middle of April of 2012. They have been tested and they all have passed the QC.