Ramatoulie Bah
Shayla R. Brooks
Dana Brown
Linwood Creekmore
Torreon N. Creekmore
Vincent Augustus Davis
Peter Eley
Danielle Graves
Paula Harrell
Golar Newby
Elizabeth Rascoe
Carl W. Seward
Eunice Smith
Rodney Stewart
Nelson Veale
Jordan Williams

Carl W. Seward
email: cwseward@mail.ecsu.edu

Mentor: Dr. Kenneth W. McFarlane
Internship: UnIPhy-REU Program, Hampton University, Hampton, VA
Title: Working on A Toroidal Large Hadron Collider Apparatus Transition Radiation Tracker (ATLAS TRT) Experiment

In our research, we addressed the performance and reliability of the ATLAS Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT). The ATLAS TRT is a new scientific instrument designed to detect and measure particles in the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The TRT will be installed in the center of ATLAS and will be inaccessible for at least the scheduled ten years that the experiment will run; therefore, reliable performance is crucial.

The research performed was aimed at ensuring high reliability of the TRT through mapping the locations of straws in the three TRT modules, and evaluation of long-term stability of sense wire tension for wires to be placed in modules of the TRT, and an assessment of linearity test electronics. Quality control will be done by looking for gain variation along the wires. Gain variation measurements will be done with electronic systems through testing and calibration of critical components of this system. Research performed determined that the components did not perform as well as expected and corrections will be needed for the actual tests.