Self-Cooling of a Large Gaseous Detector

Large volume gas detectors are common for particle tracking in high energy physics experiments. We discuss the possibility to use the internal ionization gas also as a coolant fluid to remove the heat produced by an integrated front-end (FE) readout electronics. The technique is based on an optimized fluid dynamics and is applicable to modern low-power electronics. The advantages are a simplified detector design, an overall lower material budget within the tracking detector, as well as reduced costs. We consider the case study of a straw tube tracker and optimize the relevant cooling parameters with thermal analyses. Our results indicate that an efficient cooling can be achieved with maximal operating temperatures below 40⁰C for the electronic components, using a gas mixture containing up to 30% of CO2 and relatively modest values of the gas flow.