A wire chamber used at CERN's Proton Synchrotron accelerator in the 1970s. Multi-wire detectors contain layers of positively and negatively charged wires enclosed in a chamber full of gas. A charged particle passing through the chamber knocks negatively charged electrons out of atoms in the gas, leaving behind positive ions. The electrons are pulled towards the positively charged wires. They collide with other atoms on the way, producing an avalanche of electrons and ions. The movement of these electrons and ions induces an electric pulse in the wires which is collected by fast electronics. The size of the pulse is proportional to the energy loss of the original particle.

Before the invention of wire chambers, particles tracks were analysed on scanning tables like this one. Today, the process is electronic and much faster. Bubble chamber film - currently available - (links can be found below) was used for this analysis of the particle tracks.

Proportional multi-wire chamber. Multi-wire detectors contain layers of positively and negatively charged wires enclosed in a chamber full of gas. A charged particle passing through the chamber knocks negatively charged electrons out of atoms in the gas, leaving behind positive ions. The electrons are pulled towards the positively charged wires. They collide with other atoms on the way, producing an avalanche of electrons and ions. The movement of these electrons and ions induces an electric pulse in the wires which is collected by fast electronics. The size of the pulse is proportional to the energy loss of the original particle. Proportional wire chambers allow a much quicker reading than the optical or magnetoscriptive readout wire chambers.

1 half cylinder piece is available for loan. The OPAL forward Detector Calorimeter was made in 4 half cylindrical pieces. Two full cylinders were placed round the LEP beam pipe about 3m downstream of the interaction point. The detector was used primarily to measure the luminosity of LEP (rate of interactions) and also to trigger on 2-photon events. In addition it formed an essential part of the detector coverage which OPAL needed to carry out searches for new particles such as the Higgs boson. The detector is made of scintillators sandwiched between lead sheets. The light from the scintillators passes via bars of wavelength shifter and light guides on its way to be measured by photomultipliers. There is a layer of gas filled tube chambers within the calorimeter. These provide a measure of the position of the particles interacting in the calorimeter.