The Soudan 2 proton decay experiment

Conference · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1989

OSTI ID:5989113

Thron, J L

The Soudan 2 proton decay experiment is now 1/4 complete and assembled at the bottom of the Soudan iron mine in northern Minnesota, USA. When completed, it will be an 100 ton, fine grained, iron calorimeter. It is comprised of 256 identical modules. The cavity is 14 /times/ 72 /times/ 11 /times/ m (w /times/ 1 /times/ h) large enough to accommodate a 3300 ton detector of similar design. The detector samples track positions every 15, 10, and 2mm along the three spatial coordinations. Thus, the detector will have excellent tracking capabilities for the low energy charged particles and electromagnetic showers expected from nucleon decay candidates and neutrino background events. In addition, for such events the energy of particles observed is sufficiently low that they will stop inside the detector. The measurement of the ionization deposited as a function of track length allows the determination of track and will yield some information on the particle type. In addition to the dE/dx measurements the Soudan 2 detector has several advantages over previous nucleon decay detectors. The honeycomb geometry has very isotropic detection compared with other tracking detectors. The thin steel and local triggering system produces a low trigger threshold giving excellent efficiency for multiparticle decay nodes or ones with missing energy due to neutrinos. 8 figs.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab., IL (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 5989113
• Report Number(s): ANL-HEP-CP-89-33; CONF-890231-6; ON: DE89013276
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

440104* -- Radiation Instrumentation-- High Energy Physics Instrumentation
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
645100 -- High Energy Physics-- Particle Interactions & Properties-Experimental
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
BARYONS
DECAY
DESIGN
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
FERMIONS
HADRONS
IONIZATION
LEPTONS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
MUONS
NUCLEONS
PARTICLE DECAY
PERFORMANCE
PROTONS
PULSE CIRCUITS
RADIATION DETECTORS
RESOLUTION
SHOWER COUNTERS
SPATIAL RESOLUTION
TRIGGER CIRCUITS