DETECTORS FOR PARTICLE RADIATION (SECOND EDITION)
by Konrad Kleinknecht (University of Mainz) Cambridge University Press, 246 pp, $34.95 in softcover.

This is the second (1998) edition of Kleinknecht's volume on detector techniques, first published in 1986. Much of the original material is also well known to particle physicists through its appearance in Physics Reports (volume 84, 1982), and in Kleinknecht's contribution to Experimental Techniques in High-Energy Nuclear and Particle Physics, edited by T. Ferbel and published by World Scientific.

Much of the material is identical to that contained in the first edition. Kleinknecht starts with a detailed discussion of physics foundations including charged particle interactions with matter and a long section devoted to the important subject of electron and ion interaction in gases. He then covers the measurements of ionization, position, time, energy and momentum, as well as particle identification, in separate chapters. Each of these sections covers the basic principles, details, uses and limitations of the detection systems being discussed. Taken together, all major detector types encountered in large scale detector systems in particle and nuclear physics are covered.

New material in the second edition includes sections on microstrip gas chambers, scintillating fibres, silicon strip detectors and CCDs, compensating hadronic calorimetry, and an updated and expanded discussion of Cherenkov counters. In addition, the final chapter giving a brief overview of some notable detector systems now contains new sections on CP-violation experiments, the four LEP experiments, both HERA experiments, three of the LHC detectors, and solar neutrino detectors. Some absences are: any discussion of avalanche photodiodes and (perhaps most notably) the newer technology of gas electron multipliers (GEMs). Also absent is any discuss-ion of such topics as readout of electronic detectors, data acqui-sition systems, or detector monitoring. Strictly speaking, these latter topics are outside the topic of detectors; nonetheless, a knowledge of such techniques is essential for most work with the devices and systems described in this book.

The book is very well illustrated, and contains both an index and an extensive bibliography. It is extremely well written and edited; the prose is concise and elegant and there are very few errors, typographical or otherwise. My major quibble is with the final chapter entitled Applications of Detector Systems, and specifically the section on Detector Systems for High Energy Experiments. Here, the goal is not clear. If the section is to be a compendium of major detectors, then the choice of experiments is rather surprising. For example, the UA1 detector at the CERN proton-antiproton collider is presented, although it has not been operational since the early 1990's, but the second major CERN detector (UA2), as well as the second-generation experiments CDF and D0 at the Fermilab collider, which are still operational, are not mentioned. On the other hand, if the goal is a pedagogic one, allowing students to understand how different detector types are used together in a single large system, then the descriptions are hopelessly inadequate. As an example, the ATLAS detector for CERN's Large Hadron Collider, costing (to one significant figure) 5x106 and occupying the efforts of approximately 1500 physicists and technical personnel for a decade, is described in a single 17-line paragraph! I would rather see this section devoted to a much more in-depth discussion of a much smaller number of experiments, with a clear discussion of design choices, trade-offs, and subsequent strengths and limitations.

In spite of this shortcoming, the text would be well suited to an introductory graduate student course in experimental methods in particle physics, or, with the omission of some detail, to an upper-level undergraduate course. It will also be of use to physicists from other areas seeking to familiarize (or re-familiarize) themselves with particle detection techniques, and as a vade mecum for experimental particle physicists.

Dr. K. Ragan
McGill University