The LIP RPC group has its roots in previous work on Parallel Plate Avalanche Chambers done in collaboration with the old Charpak group at CERN.

In 1998/9 we participated in the R&D effort for the time-of-flight (TOF) detector of the ALICE (CERN) experiment, within which we co-invented the timing Resistive Plate Chamber (tRPC) technology. These devices revolutionized the TOF detection technique, opening way for very large area TOF detectors, which were, are or will be present in many HEP experiments (ALICE, BESIII, BGO- EGG, CBM, FOPI, HADES, HARP, STAR).

Besides the original work in ALICE, along with numerous international and local collaborators, we contributed to the field a number of developments that expanded the RPC applications range, continuing the work presently on some of these lines:

• very large area/channel tRPCs

• shielded tRPCs for robust multihit capability in dense arrays

• the use of ceramic materials and warm glass for enhanced count-rate capability

• application of RPCs to animal and human Positron Emission Tomography (RPC-PET)

• simultaneous high-resolution measurement of positions and times (TOFtracker)

• very low maintenance, environmentally robust, RPCs for deployment in remote locations

• large fast-neutron TOF detectors

• epi-thermal neutron detectors with ¹⁰B converters

 

Our group designed and built the HADES TOF Wall detectors and it is now the sole responsible for the operation of the system, which has shown so far flawless performance. This work will be carried into the future FAIR facility (Germany), as HADES is a FAIR experiment. 
Besides the development of technology expanding devices, we keep an interest in RPC’s physical modelling and other fundamental issues, such as gas mixture properties and aging. In close collaboration with the detector lab we also design and produce detector-support electronics, such as front-end amplifiers and high-voltage power supplies.

We participated briefly in the ALICE and CBM experiments, in the FP6 EU projects I3-Hadron-Physics and DIRAC-PHASE-I, and, currently, in AIDA2020 (http://aida2020.web.cern.ch/). We are members of CERN’s RD51 and SHiP collaborations.

The RPC group cooperates with several other LIP groups (neutron detectors, AUGER, LATTES, HADES, PET with RPCs and RD51), supporting their RPC-related activities. See the specific reports for further details.

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Responsável de Grupo:  

Alberto Blanco