Multiwire and drift proportional chambers

OCT 01, 1978

These detectors, able to determine trajectory positions to better than 50 microns, now equip nearly every high‐energy physics experiment in which charged particles have to be localized.

DOI: 10.1063/1.2994772

Georges Charpak

In some kinds of experiments, the accurate localization of ionizing particles is essential. Multiwire proportional chambers and drift chambers, first developed in the late 1960’s, are now routine tools in such applications. Although the structure of these detectors is very simple, our understanding of them has evolved rapidly in recent years, as has the variety of modes in which they have been operated. Here we shall consider briefly the operation of these detectors. Then we can proceed to a discussion of the latest developments, which aim to obtain information on the reaction products of the most complex high‐energy collisions, with the utmost accuracy and efficiency. (Detailed descriptions of the detectors and their properties can now be found abundantly in the literature, which is extensively reviewed in references 3 and 4.)

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More about the authors

Georges Charpak, CERN, Geneva.