The possibility to study the production and decay systematics of short-lived (tau greater than approximately 10-13 secs) new particles in hadronic reactions using the bubble chamber techniques

The application of the bubble chamber technique to the detection and study of charmed particles (or other short-lived particles) produced in hadronic interactions is considered. It is concluded that a spectrometer containing as its target a small rapid cycling bubble chamber with spatial resolution of approximately 10 μm could provide a valuable means of studying particles with lifetime tau approximately> 10-13 secs, giving a well-resolved view of the production and decay vertices for a large proportion of the events. Development of a system with the necessary optical resolution, as well as providing an experimental sensitivity of up to approximately100 ev/μb/day, appears within the range of technical feasibility. As a further result of the calculations, it is found that the recently quoted upper limit (Coremans=Bertrand et al., Phys. Letts.; 65 B 5:480 (1976)) for production of charmed particles in emulsion by 300 GeV/c protons, sigma < 1.5 μb (90% C.L.) is only correct for tau approximately equals 10-14 seconds. For longer lifetimes the upper limit should be understood as a function of lifetime, varying between the quoted approximately 1.5 μb for tau approximately 10-14 secs to approximately 20 μb for tau approximately 10-12 secs. (author)