Luminosity measurement at ATLAS - development, construction and test of scintillating fibre prototype detectors

We are reporting about a scintillating fibre tracker which is proposed for the precise determination of the absolute luminosity of the CERN LHC at interaction point 1 where the ATLAS experiment is located. The detector needs to track protons elastically scattered under micro-rad angles in direct vicinity to the LHC beam. It is based on square shaped scintillating plastic fibres read out by multi-anode photomultiplier tubes and is housed in Roman Pots. We describe the design and construction of prototype detectors and the results of a beam test experiment at DESY. The excellent detector performance established in this test validates the detector design and supports the feasibility of the proposed challenging method of luminosity measurement.