Development of GEM Detectors at Hampton University

TL;DR

Hampton University developed and tested GEM detectors for multiple physics experiments, demonstrating their versatility and ongoing optimization efforts for improved data acquisition in particle tracking applications.

Contribution

The paper reports on the construction, testing, and application of GEM detectors at Hampton University, including their use in various experiments and ongoing enhancements for data acquisition.

Findings

Successfully operated GEM telescopes for luminosity monitoring at DESY.

Repurposed GEM elements for beam tracking in MUSE and DarkLight experiments.

Ongoing efforts to optimize data acquisition speed for enhanced performance.

Abstract

Two GEM telescopes, each consisting of three 10x10 cm$^2$ triple-GEM chambers were built, tested and operated by the Hampton University group. The GEMs are read out with APV25 frontend chips and FPGA based digitizing electronics developed by INFN Rome. The telescopes were used for the luminosity monitoring system at the OLYMPUS experiment at DESY in Germany, with positron and electron beams at 2 GeV. The GEM elements have been recycled to serve in another two applications: Three GEM elements are used to track beam particles in the MUSE experiment at PSI in Switzerland. A set of four elements has been configured as a prototype tracker for phase 1a of the DarkLight experiment at the Low-Energy Recirculator Facility (LERF) at Jefferson Lab in Newport News, USA, in a first test run in summer 2016. The Hampton group is responsible for the DarkLight phase-I lepton tracker in preparation. Further efforts are ongoing to optimize the data acquisition speed for GEM operations in MUSE and DarkLight. An overview of the group's GEM detector related activities will be given.