Numerical study of effects of electrode parameters and image charge on the electric field configuration of RPCs

TL;DR

This study investigates how electrode parameters and image charge effects influence the electric field configuration in resistive plate chambers, highlighting the impact of space charge and electrode properties on field stability in high-rate experiments.

Contribution

It provides a numerical analysis of how electrode thickness, permittivity, and gas gap affect electric field perturbations and employs the image charge method to quantify space charge effects in RPCs.

Findings

Electric field perturbation depends on electrode thickness, permittivity, and gas gap.

Space charge effects significantly modify the applied electric field.

The image charge method effectively models polarization fields due to space charge.

Abstract

The working of a resistive plate chamber depends on the electric field applied inside the gas gap. The strength of this electric field inside the gas gap depends on parameters like electrode thickness, permittivity, gas gap, among others. The applied electric field can get significantly modified by space charge effect. This can be a major concern while working in high rate particle physics experiments. Accumulation of space charge generated due to consecutive avalanches can distort the applied field. During this investigation, we have observed that the strength of this perturbation in electric field is a function of the amount of charge, electrode thickness, permittivity, and gas gap. In this paper, we have studied the dependence of the applied field on parameters linked to RPC fabrication, mentioned above. In addition, we have used the method of image to calculate the additional polarisation field due to space charge for a basic five layers of the geometry of an RPC. The variation of the perturbation in electric field with the same three parameters electrode thickness, permittivity, gas gap has also been discussed.