CERN-GIF++: A new Irradiation Facility to Test Large-Area Detectors for the HL-LHC Program

by Roberto Guida (CERN)

Friday 8 May 2015, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

40/S2-A01 - Salle Anderson (CERN)

The high-luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) upgrade is setting a new challenge for particle detector technologies. The increase in luminosity will produce a higher particle background with respect to present conditions. Performance and stability of detectors at LHC and future upgrade systems will remain the subject of extensive studies. The former CERN-Gamma Irradiation Facility (GIF) was intensively used to simultaneously expose detectors to the photons from a 137Cesium source and to high energy particles from the X5 beam line in SPS West Area for many years. From 2004 onwards, only the 137Cesium source was available for irradiations and, finally, the facility has been shutdown at the end of 2014. The present contribution describes a joint project between CERN-EN and CERN-PH departments to design and build the new CERN GIF++ facility. GIF++ is a unique place where high energy charged particle beams (mainly muon beam with momentum up to 100 GeV/c) are combined with a 14 TBq 137Cesium source. The higher source activity produces a background gamma field which is a factor 30 more intense than that at GIF, allowing to cumulate doses equivalent to HL-LHC experimental conditions in a reasonable time. The 100 m2 GIF++ irradiation bunker has two independent irradiation zones making it possible to test real size detectors, of up to several m2, as well as a broad range of smaller prototype detectors and electronic components. The photon flux of each irradiation zone can be tuned using a set of lead filters with attenuation factors from zero to 50,000. Flexible services and infrastructure including electronic racks, gas systems, radiation and environmental monitoring systems, and an ample preparation zone allow time effective installation of detectors. A dedicated control system provides the overview of the status of the facility and archives relevant information. Thanks to the collaboration between CERN and the users’ detector community, the latter providing detector specific infrastructures within the framework of the FP7 AIDA project, the new facility is now operational. A detailed program has been prepared to coordinate the R&D activities of about 15 detector groups from different LHC experiments during 2015.

Slides DetectorSeminarGIF++May2015RobertoGuida_v3reduced.pdf