The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) is an example of a large particle detector. Notice the person for scale.

In experimental and applied particle physics, nuclear physics, and nuclear engineering, a particle detector, also known as a radiation detector, is a device used to detect, track, and/or identify high-energy particles, such as those produced by nuclear decay, cosmic radiation, or reactions in a particle accelerator. Modern detectors are also used as calorimeters to measure the energy of the detected radiation. They may also be used to measure other attributes such as momentum, spin, charge etc. of the particles.

[edit] Description

Summary of Particle Detectors

Detectors designed for modern accelerators are huge, both in size and in cost. The term counter is often used instead of detector, when the detector counts the particles but does not resolve its energy or ionization. Particle detectors usually can also track ionizing radiation (high energy photons or even visible light). If their main purpose is radiation measurement, they are called radiation detectors, but as photons are also (massless) particles, the term particle detector is still correct.

[edit] Examples and types

Many of the detectors invented and used so far are ionization detectors (of which gaseous ionization detectors and semiconductor detectors are most typical) and scintillation detectors; but other, completely different principles have also been applied, like Čerenkov light and transition radiation.

Cloud chamber with visible tracks from ionizing radiation (short, thick: α-particles; long, thin: β-particles

Historical Examples

• Bubble chamber
• Wilson cloud chamber (diffusion chamber)
• Photographic plates

Detectors for Radiation Protection

• Dosimeter
• Electroscope (miniature electroscopes are used as portable dosimeters)

Commonly used detectors for Particle and Nuclear Physics

• Gaseous ionization detectors
  • Ionization chamber
  • Proportional counter
    • Multiwire Proportional Chamber
    • Drift chamber
    • Time projection chamber
  • Geiger-Müller tube
  • Spark chamber

• Solid-state detectors
  • Cherenkov detector
    • RICH (Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detector)
  • Scintillation counter and associated Photomultiplier or Photodiode / Avalanche photodiode
    • Lucas cell
    • Time of flight detector
  • Semiconductor detector
    • Silicon Vertex Detector
  • Transition radiation detector

• Calorimeters

[edit] Modern detectors

Modern detectors in particle physics combine several of the above elements in layers much like an onion.

[edit] Installations of particle detectors

[edit] At colliders

• At CERN
  • for the LHC
    • CMS
    • ATLAS
    • ALICE
    • LHCb
  • for the LEP
    • Aleph[1]
    • Delphi[2]
    • L3
    • Opal[3]
  • for the SPS
    • The COMPASS Experiment
    • Gargamelle
    • NA49
• At Fermilab
  • for the Tevatron
    • CDF
    • D0
• At DESY
  • for HERA
    • H1
    • HERA-B
    • HERMES
    • ZEUS
• At BNL
  • for the RHIC
    • PHENIX
    • Phobos (physics)
    • STAR
• At SLAC
  • for the PeP-II
    • BaBar
  • for the SLC
    • SLD
• At Cornell
  • for CESR
    • CLEO
    • CUSB
• Others
  • MECO from UC Irvine

[edit] Under construction

• For ILC
  • CALICE

[edit] Without colliders

• Super-Kamiokande
• AMANDA
• CMDS

[edit] See also

• List of particles

[edit] External articles and references

Filmstrips

• "Radiation detectors". H. M. Stone Productions, Schloat. Tarrytown, N.Y., Prentice-Hall Media, 1972.

General Information

• The Particle Detector BriefBook
• How to Build a Cloud Chamber
• Grupen, C. (June 28-July 10 1999). "Physics of Particle Detection". AIP Conference Proceedings, Instrumentation in Elementary Particle Physics, VIII. 536. Istanbul: Dordrecht, D. Reidel Publishing Co.. pp. 3–34. doi:10.1063/1.1361756.