Detector Rates and Lifetime

From GlueXWiki
Revision as of 08:24, 7 September 2011 by Zihlmann (Talk | contribs) (Rate and Current calculations)

Jump to: navigation, search

As the rates close to the photon beam line can be substantial it is necessary to investigate the consequences on the performance and lifetime of the scintillator itself and its readout devices.

Rate Estimates

The estimated rates in a given paddle depend on the upstream detector geometry and target material. Some estimates can be found in GlueX-DB 1471. In figure 7 on page 9 of this document you find the estimated rates for all paddles with the half sized paddles on the side (41 - 44). The rates for the central paddles are expected to be rather large up to 12 MHz! These are calculations with 6cm wide paddles of 1 inch thickness. Therefore splitting the central paddles in half is a necessity to cut down the rates to a more acceptable level.

PMT specifications

According to the specifications for the Hamamatsu PMT H9779 (8-stage) the maximum operating current is 0.1 mA. Elton estimated the signal amplitude based on this maximum current assuming a gain of 5*10^5 and 50ns signal base line. This results in an amplitude of 50mV. From bench tests with an LED on an H10534 PMT assembly with a 10-stage H9779 PMT and operating voltage of 1900V resulting in a gain of 4.1*10^6 and a measured 270 photo electrons per LED pulse a signal amplitude of 1.45V was recorded. The signal base line was about 20ns. Assuming a triangular signal shape the total charge of the signal is 0.5 * 1.45V * 20*10^-9s / 50Ohm = 2.9*10^-10 C. At a rate of 3MHz this would correspond to a current of 0.9 mA!

Rate and Current calculations

The basis of this estimate is GlueX-Doc 1471 figure 6 and 7. The following is an energy spectrum of a tof paddle for the expected electromagnetic background.
Tof adc thresh zero.gif Tof adc thresh 20.gif
The peak around 50 represents the photons that convert at the entrance to the TOF paddle or before thereby looking like a MIP particle. The shape of the peak is a typical Landau distribution. The mean of this peak (ADC=54) is approximately the mean energy loss of MIPs in plastic scintillator (2MeV/cm) and amounts to about 5MeV.
At zero threshold the mean of the full distribution is about 32. And corresponds to a rate of about 16MHz for the innermost paddle according to figure 8 of GlueX-Doc 1471. In order to estimate the current in the PMT for such a situation several assumptions need to be made:

  • Signal base line 25ns
  • Signal shape triangular
  • Signal amplitude for mean MIPs (ADC=54) 1000mV
  • Load 50 Ohms
  • Rage at zero threshold 16MHz

Here it is assumed that the HV of the PMT is set such that the mean energy loss of MIPs results in a 1Volt signal amplitude. The mean charge for a zero threshold is then given as
Q = 32./54 * 1/50Ohms * 25ns * 1/2 = 0.148 *10^-9
with a rate of 16MHz this results in a current of
I = Q*16MHz = 0.148 *10^-9 * 16*10^6 = 2.37 mA
This is a factor of about 24 higher than the maximum recommended current for the PMT!