The Application of Resistive Charge Division in Large Proportional Tube Chambers

A proportional tube chamber system has been constructed to instrument a high energy neutrino calorimeter at Fermilab. Each proportional wire chamber consists of a stack of extruded aluminum eight cell 1" × 8" extrusion with a 1/2" cell offset. With these modules 12' × 12', 16' × 16' and 24' × 24' chambers have been constructed. A novel resistive charge division system is used for the position measurement. This system, consists of a number of wires resistively connected in a paralled feeding into two amplifiers, one at each end. From a measurement of the pulse height difference normalized to the pulse height sum, the hit wire is uniquely determined thus giving a lateral position measurement.