Effect of surface roughness on the electrostatic field of an RPC

Abstract

The inner surfaces of the electrodes encompassing the gas volume of a Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) have been found to exhibit asperities with three kind of feature grossly. The desired uniform electric field within the gas volume of RPC is expected to be affected due to presence of these asperities, which will eventually affect the final response from the detector. In this work, an attempt has been made to model the highly complex roughness of the electrode surfaces and compute its effect on the electrostatic field within RPC gas chamber. The different aspects of surface structures have been modeled and their effect on the electrostatic field has been calculated. The calculations have been performed numerically using Finite Element Method (FEM) and Boundary Element Method (BEM) and the two methods have been compared in this context.