Fudan multi-purpose active target time projection chamber (fMeta-TPC) for photonuclear reaction experiments

Active target time projection chambers are state-of-the-art tools in the field of low-energy nuclear physics and are particularly suitable for experiments using low-intensity radioactive ion beams or gamma rays. The Fudan multi-purpose active target time projection chamber (fMeta-TPC) with 2048 channels was developed to study alpha-clustering nuclei. This study focused on the photonuclear reaction with a laser Compton scattering gamma source, particularly for the decay of the highly excited alpha cluster state. The design of fMeta-TPC is described in this paper. A comprehensive evaluation of its offline performance was conducted using an ultraviolet laser and 241Am alpha source. The results showed that the intrinsic angular resolution of the detector was within 0.30 degrees, and the detector had an energy resolution of 6.85% for 3.0 MeV alpha particles. The gain uniformity of the detector was approximately 10% (RMS/Mean), as tested by the 55Fe X-ray source.