Large area drift tube chambers for a muon detector at the pp-collider

The large area muon detector for the UA1-experiment at the CERN pp- collider consists of simple and robust 4 m*6 m drift chamber modules, which are constructed of extruded aluminium profiles. Electrical field calculations show that a saturated drift velocity can be achieved up to a drift length of 7 cm with only three additional field shaping electrodes and an optimized tube profile. The field calculations as well as results about the spatial resolution of such a drift tube are presented. The coordinate along the wire can be determined from the time difference of the pulses at both ends of the tube. (3 refs).