ARGO-YBJ: Italy (INFN) - China (CAS) collaboration
Collaboration:
Location: Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Laboratory, 4300 m a.s.l., Tibet (China)
1. Goal of the experiment
The ARGO-YBJ experiment is devoted to the search of cosmic ray sources by means of the observation of galactic and extragalactic neutral and charged radiation in the energy range 100 GeV - 1000 TeV with a detector based on Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC's) covering an area of 6500 m2 and providing a detailed space-time picture of the cosmic ray shower front. The detector is under construction at the Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Laboratory.
2.
Activities during the 2001
Milestones 2002
Construction of 600 RPCs | 31-12-2002 |
60 clusters installed by the end of 2002 | 31-12-2002 |
50 clusters in data taking | 31-12-2002 |
3. INFN contribution to the experiment in terms of manpower and financial support
Manpower:
47 researchers (27.7 FTE), 2 technologists (1.1 FTE), 7 technicians (3.8 FTE) plus support from the mechanics and electronics workshops of Napoli and Roma-2.
Budget for the Year 2002: 639 kEuro
4. Publications in refereed journal: 4
5. Conference talks: 6
6. Number of undergraduate and doctoral thesis on the experiment:
7. Leadership roles and primary responsibilities in the experiment
Lecce: Local Station electronics and trigger.
Napoli: DAQ, gas distribution system, analog read-out, trigger.
Roma-2: Front-End electronics, detector control system
Roma-3: Detector assembling, experiment layout, HV system, trigger distribution.
8. Innovative instruments
The ARGO-YBJ experiment has developed
Many of the technical solutions could be of general interest
for experiments aiming to fully exploit the RPCs performance
9. Competing experiments
A similar approach to the g -astronomy ("full coverage" detector at high altitude, large field of view, ~ 100 % duty cycle) is already operating (MILAGRO (USA), 2600 m a.s.l., 4800 m2 water pool instrumented with PM tubes + array). The performance of ARGO-YBJ is expected to be definitely better, due to the high space-time granularity as well as to the higher elevation of the experimental site. However, a fast completion and commissioning of the detector is needed.
10. International committee which has reviewed the experiment
The ARGO-YBJ project has been examined and approved by the
INFN Committee II and by the CAS Scientific Committee.