Speaker
Thomas Kirn
(RWTH Aachen)
Description
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) experiment will be mounted on
the International Space Station (ISS) for three years to perform precision
cosmic particle spectroscopy in space. The search for dark matter candidates
requires a precise e +-spectroscopy in the energy range from 10 GeV up to
300 GeV. Therefore the dominating p-background has to be reduced by a
factor 10 6. This will be achieved with the AMS-02 electromagnetic
calorimeter delivering 3-4 orders of magnitude and the transition radiation
detector with proton rejections between 100 and 1000. The AMS-02 TRD
consists of 20 layers of 6mm diameter straw modules alternating with 20
mm layers of polyethylene/polypropylene fleece radiator. The straws are
filled with a 80%:20% Xe/CO2 gas mixture at 1.0 bar absolute from a
recirculating gas system designed to operate > 3 years. The straw modules
will be operated in proportional mode at a gasgain of 3000. For the readout
a dedicated low-power data-acquisition system based on VA analog
multiplexers has been developed. The completed construction and assembly
of the detector will be presented with special emphasis on space
qualification, long flight duration aspects and calibration of the AMS-02 TRD.
This project is funded by the German Space Agency DLR, the US
Department of Energy DOE and NASA.
Author
Thomas Kirn
(RWTH Aachen)
