A continuous read-out TPC for the ALICE upgrade

The largest gaseous Time Projection Chamber (TPC) in the world, the ALICE TPC, will be upgraded based on Micro Pattern Gas Detector technology during the second long shutdown of the CERN Large Hadron Collider in 2018/19. The upgraded detector will operate continuously without the use of a triggered gating grid. It will thus be able to read all minimum bias Pb–Pb events that the LHC will deliver at the anticipated peak interaction rate of 50 kHz for the high luminosity heavy-ion era. New read-out electronics will send the continuous data stream to a new online farm at rates up to 1 TByte/s.