The certification of ATLAS thin gap chambers produced in Israel and China

Thin gap chambers (TGCs) are used for the muon trigger system in the forward region of the LHC experiment ATLAS. A TGC consists of a plane of closely spaced wires maintained at positive high voltage, sandwiched between resistive grounded cathode planes with an anode wire to cathode plane gap distance smaller than the wire-to-wire spacing. The TGCs are expected to provide a trigger signal within 25 ns of the bunch spacing of the LHC accelerator, with an efficiency exceeding 95%, while exposed to an effective photon and neutron background ranging from 30 to 500 Hz/cm/sup 2/. About 2,500 out of the 3,600 ATLAS TGCs are being produced at the Weizmann institute in Israel, and in Shandong University in China. Once installed in the ATLAS detector the TGCs will be inaccessible. A vigorous production quality control program is therefore implemented at the production sites. Furthermore, after chamber completion, a thorough program of quality assurance is implemented to ensure the efficient performance of the chambers during more than ten years of operation in the LHC high rate environment. This program consists of a detailed mapping of the detector response using cosmic rays, as well as checking the chambers behavior using a high rate radiation source. An aging test performed on five chambers in a serial gas connection is presented. Finally the results of the chamber certification tests performed at CERN before the installation in ATLAS are described.