A low-cost total absorption track detector of high energy particles

A total absorption particle detector, easy to realize at a very low cost even in huge sensitive volumes, has been developed. It consists of a large number of 'plastic flash chambers' alternated with plates of inert dense material in which the cascade showers develop. The chambers are sensitized by the application of a high voltage pulse which causes the chamber elementary cells to flash if they are traversed by ionizing particles. Different optical and electrical read-out systems can be applied to extract the information. The detector can be applied to measure the primary energy of impinging electrons and photons, or hadrons, up to energies of tens of GeV, or possibly more. In the specific detector described in this article, composed of 14 chambers alternated with 0.5 cm thick Pb plates a vidicon read-out is used to record on a triggered magnetic tape the information derivable from its approximately 6700 sensitive cells, which are rectangular tubes of extruded polypropylene of 3.5 mm x 5 mm cross-section. This instrument is shown to measure the primary electron energy with a (r.m.s) accuracy ΔE/E=approximately+-12%)/√E(E in GeV) in the energy range 0.5-4 GeV. As an example, the possible application of this technique to a search for 'neutrino oscillations' is briefly discussed. (Auth.)