Response of microchannel plates in ionization mode to single particles and electromagnetic showers

Hundreds of concurrent collisions per bunch crossing are expected at future hadron colliders. Precision timing calorimetry has been advocated as a way to mitigate the pileup effects and, thanks to their excellent time resolution, microchannel plates (MCPs) are good candidate detectors for this goal. We report on the response of MCPs, used as secondary emission detectors, to single relativistic particles and to electromagnetic showers. Several prototypes, with different geometries and characteristics, were exposed to particle beams at the INFN-LNF Beam Test Facility and at CERN. Their time resolution and efficiency are measured for single particles and as a function of the multiplicity of particles. Efficiencies between 50% and 90% to single relativistic particles are reached, and up to 100% in presence of a large number of particles. Time resolutions between 20ps and 30ps are obtained.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures. Paper submitted to NIM

Measurement of the branching fraction of J/ψ→ρπJ/\psi\rightarrow\rho\pi at KEDR

We present the study of the decay $J/\psi \rightarrow \rho \pi$. The results are based on of 5.2 million $J/\psi$ events collected by the KEDR detector at VEPP-4M collider. The branching fraction is measured to be $\mathcal{B}(J/\psi\rightarrow\rho\pi) = \big(2.072\pm 0.017 \pm 0.056 \big)\cdot 10^{-2}$ where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second one is systematic. This is the most precise single measurement of this quantity at the moment

Aerogel Cherenkov Counters of the KEDR Detector

The particle identification system of the KEDR detector is based on aerogel threshold Cherenkov counters called ASHIPH counters. The system consists of 160 counters arranged in two layers. An event reconstruction program for the ASHIPH system was developed. The position of each counter relative to the tracking system was determined using cosmic muons and Bhabha events. The geometric efficiency of the ASHIPH system was verified with Bhabha events. The efficiency of relativistic particle detection was measured with cosmic muons. A π/K separation of 4δ in the momentum range 0.95 −1.45 GeV/c was confirmed. A simulation program for the ASHIPH counters has been developed

Aerogel mass production for the CLAS12 RICH: Novel characterization methods and optical performance

A large area ring-imaging Cherenkov detector has been designed to provide clean hadron identification capabilities in the momentum range from 3 GeV/c to 8 GeV/c for the CLAS12 experiments at the Jefferson Lab upgraded 12 GeV continuous electron beam accelerator facility. The adopted solution foresees a novel hybrid optics design based on an aerogel radiator, composite mirrors and densely-packed and highly-segmented photon detectors. Cherenkov light will either be imaged directly (forward tracks) or after two mirror reflections (large angle tracks). The status of the aerogel mass-production and the assessment studies of the aerogel optical performance are here reported