The liquid argon time projection chamber

Abstract

The time projection chamber (TPC) was invented by David Nygren in 1974 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California, USA [10]. It followed the invention of the multi-wire proportional chamber (MWPC) which was made in 1968 [11] by Georges Charpak who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992 for this reason. The development of these devices marked a revolutionary step in the detection of ionizing radiation. For the first time it was possible to read out electronically a detector with tracking capabilities as superior as those of a bubble chamber. Originally, TPCs were typically filled with noble gases where argon was the First choice in most cases. In 1977, Carlo Rubbia [12] proposed the use of liquefied argon as a target medium in TPCs for reasons that will be explained in this chapter. The introduction on the LArTPC working principle is followed by a more detailed discussion of the main aspects and processes associated with this detector technology.