The academic team of the University of Tirana and the Polytechnic University of Tirana made the first official visit to the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, working in the Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC) group, as part of the Compact Muon international collaboration Solenoid (CMS) in laboratory 904, in Prévessin.
The University of Tirana and the Polytechnic University of Tirana in this meeting were represented by:
1. Prof. Assoc. Dr. Rudina Osmanaj (UT);
2. Prof. Assoc. Dr. Claudio Peqini (UT);
3. Prof. Assoc. Dr. Olta Çakaj (UT);
4. Dr. Enkelejd Çaça (UPT).
The Albanian group was involved in the activities of the iRPC working group. Prof. Assoc. Dr. Claudio Peqini and Dr. Enkelejd Çaça, together with Dr. Maxime Gouzevitch worked on the calibration of the Front-End-Board (FEB), while Prof. Assoc. Dr. Olta Çakaj and Prof. Assoc. Dr. Rudina Osmanaj worked on the assembly of the iRPC detector rooms. Worked on gas flow test, pressure, as well as high voltage test of the chambers. Simultaneously work was done on the assembly of all parts of the iRPC.
Meetings were also held with the project manager of RPC and iRPC: Prof. Salvatore Buontempo and Dr. Ece Asilar, with whom we discussed the possibilities of involving doctoral students in projects that could have a direct contribution to the work of this group.
This visit helped the CMS Albania group to provide the first important scientific contribution, which was realized for the first time since 2020, for the study and calibration of the readout electronics for the iRPC detectors. This had not been done since their creation. This contribution was also approved by the scientific board at CERN during the results approval meeting by the scientific board (August 30, 2024).
The working group also held working meetings with Prof. Hafeez Hoorani, Deputy Chair CMS Collaboration Board, with whom the possibilities of the involvement of Albanian institutions in CMS were discussed. He emphasized the importance of harmonizing members with different backgrounds in the CMS Albania group, where it is important to have one or two theoreticians.
The results were presented at the XVII international conference of RPCs in Santiago De Compostela, Spain, on September 9-13, 2024 in the Paper entitled "CMS iRPC readout electronics".