Gas Time Projection Chambers (TPCs) are used in a vast array of diverse applications, from charged particle tracking at high-intensity colliders to low-energy nuclear recoil tracking in Dark Matter observatories. The charge detection technology in TPCs has advanced to the degree that it can be considered nearly ideal: performance is approaching limits determined by the intrinsic physics of particles interacting with gas and not by technology. A partnership between the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will close the remaining gap. The development of a general-purpose, ideal TPC technology will proceed through two parallel efforts. In the first, a microstructure will be developed that can amplify individual charges with negligible backflow of ions. In the second, machine learning-based event classification will be embedded in the readout hardware in order to quickly and efficiently classify events and individual charges. These capabilities will be demonstrated experimentally using test sources embedded in TPCs operating under conditions suitable for high-energy charged particle tracking and low-energy nuclear recoil tracking. The successful demonstration of ideal TPC performance will set the stage for a longer-term collaboration dedicated to a full, general-purpose, ideal TPC system that will be suitable for a wide range of future experiments across the intensity and cosmic frontiers.
