30.03.2012

European particle physics bundles detector development

European high energy physics takes another step towards bundling forces for the construction of detectors at particle accelerators. The 26-million-euro project will advance a common European infrastructure for detector development, including among others shared standards for sensor development, test possibilities and data evaluation. More than 80 institutes from 23 countries are participating at AIDA (Advanced European Infrastructures for Detectors at Accelerators). This week, the first annual meeting took place at DESY in Hamburg, with more than 150 participants. The project is coordinated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN near Geneva.

The CMS detector at the LHC (Photo: CERN).

Particle detectors are extremely refined systems that are always custom-made and usually combine a multitude of different technologies. With the sophisticated high energy physics issues, detector development becomes ever more important. Therefore, networking will be further improved in the future: "The basic idea is, not everybody does everything but everybody does what he or she is best at," DESY particle physicist Ties Behnke explains. Concrete installations are planned at the end of the 4-year project, including a series of standardized telescopes to precisely measure a test beam and to gauge detector components. A prototype has already been created within the framework of the forerunner project EUDET, which currently is successfully used at DESY and CERN.

Detector development for high energy physics is also profitable for other fields of use. Many imaging methods in medicine, e.g. computer and positron emission tomography, are based on particle detector technology, and this is also true for radioactive waste monitoring and for detecting hazardous material in baggage. There are also close links to detector development in the field of research at synchrotron radiation sources.

The AIDA project complements developments at European level, which also play an important role in the Helmholtz Association within the framework of the new theme "Detector Development and System Platform".