The LHC plans to increase its instantaneous luminosity to 7.5 E34 cm-2 s−1. With this increase, substantial degradation of the tracking performance was expected both in efficiency and resolution in the Small Wheel (SW) region of the ATLAS detector. The New Small Wheels (NSW), which have replaced the SW, will have the desired performance and will introduce trigger information from the SW region. The new system is a combination of precision tracking and trigger detectors with excellent real-time spatial and time resolution. Each NSW consists of 16 sectors (32 for both wheels) with 16 detector planes. The multilayers comprise of small-strip Thin Gap Chambers (sTGC) and MicroMegas (MM) detector planes.
The integration of the sectors on the NSWs started at the end of 2019 in building 191. Each sector has been commissioned in parallel to the sequential integration of the next. Both wheels were fully commissioned on the surface before their transport to P1 where, after their installation at ATLAS, the commissioning restarted. An overview of the integration and commissioning efforts will be presented, both on the surface and underground, detailing the challenges along the way. The current status and plans of the preparations for data taking will be summarised.
Burkhard Schmidt (EP-DT)