Optical readout of MicroPattern Gaseous Detectors with SiPMs

In order to probe the universe for new and exciting physics, increasingly higher and higher energy scales must be accessed to test our theories, potentially uncovering new particles and interactions. Particle colliders are one such technology that allow us to do this. With the ever increasing luminosity of new particle colliders, such as the High-Luminosity LHC planned to begin operation in 2029, there is demand for detectors capable of taking advantage of this luminosity. The luminosity measures the number of collision events occurring in a given time-frame, and thus it is crucial that detectors operate with a finer and finer temporal resolution to keep up with these advances. This timing data is not only useful for discerning between events, but also for particle track reconstruction, by using spatial data over multiple layers of detectors. Thus, detector development is an active area of research, as these detectors must not only be fast, but also reliable and scalable. A particular type of detector that is of interest is the Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM). Such GEMs already exist in the CMS experiment at the LHC, for muon detection. These sorts of detectors are part of a larger class of detectors known as Micropattern gaseous detectors (MPGDs), named from the fact the each detector contains a micro structure (for example a mesh, or a plate with small holes on the tens of micros scale), that along with the gas inside, allow for very efficient amplification of electronic signals. This has the advantage of making the signals less prone to noise. These detectors also have the advantage of being tolerant to radiation, something of high importance in the particle collider setting. The Gas Detector Development (GDD) lab at CERN designs and tests new prototypes for MPGDs, with the goal of achieving timing resolution on the picosecond scale, while being both robust and scalable. In particular, this project focused on marrying the Micro-Mesh Gaseous Structure (MicroMegas) detector with optical Silicon Photomulitpliers (SiPMs), to investigate whether the fast timing of the Micromegas can be corroborated with the superior spatial resolution of the SiPMs, to allow for better overall resolution for detecting muons and electrons.