Title: Development and Characterisation of a Gas System and its Associated Slow-Control System for an ATLAS Small-Strip Thin Gap Chamber Testing Facility,
Abstract: A quality assurance and performance qualification laboratory was built at
McGill University for the Canadian-made small-strip Thin Gap Chamber (sTGC)
muon detectors produced for the 2019-2020 ATLAS experiment muon spectrometer
upgrade. The facility uses cosmic rays as a muon source to ionise the quenching
gas mixture of pentane and carbon dioxide flowing through the sTGC detector. A
gas system was developed and characterised for this purpose, with a simple and
efficient gas condenser design utilizing a Peltier thermoelectric cooler (TEC).
The gas system was tested to provide the desired 45 vol% pentane concentration.
For continuous operations, a state-machine system was implemented with alerting
and remote monitoring features to run all cosmic-ray data-acquisition
associated slow-control systems, such as high/low voltage, gas system and
environmental monitoring, in a safe and continuous mode, even in the absence of
an operator.