Development of a multiwire proportional chamber with good tolerance to burst hits

The DeeMe experiment to search for muon-to-electron conversions with a sensitivity 10–100 times better than those achieved by previous experiments is in preparation at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex. The magnetic spectrometer used by the DeeMe experiment consists of an electromagnet and four multiwire proportional chambers (MWPCs). The newly developed MWPCs are operated with a high voltage (HV) switching technique and have good burst-hit tolerance. In this article, the final designs of the MWPCs, amplifiers for readout, and HV switching modules are described. Additionally, some results of MWPC performance evaluation are presented.