Ageing studies for the ATLAS MDT Muonchambers and development of a gas filter to prevent drift tube ageing

The muon spectrometer of the ATLAS detector at CERN uses drift tubes as basic detection elements over most of the solid angle. The performance of these monitored drift tubes (MDTs), in particular their spatial resolution of 80 µm, determines the precision of the spectrometer. If ageing effects occur, the precision of the drift tubes will be degraded. Hence ageing effects have to be minimized or avoided altogether if possible. Even with a gas mixture of Ar:CO2 (93:7), which was selected for its good ageing properties, ageing effects were observed in test systems. They were caused by small amounts of impurities, in particular volatile silicon compounds. Systematic studies revealed the required impurity levels deteriorating the drift tubes to be well below 1 ppm. Many components of the ATLAS MDT gas system are supplied by industry. In a newly designed ageing experiment in Freiburg these components were validated for their use in ATLAS. With a fully assembled ATLAS gas distribution rack as test component ageing effects were observed. It was therefore decided to install gas filters in the gas distribution lines to remove volatile silicon compounds efficiently from the gas mixture. Finally a filter was designed that can adsorb up to 5.5 g of volatile silicon compounds, hereby reducing the impurities in the outlet gas mixture to less than 30 ppb.