A spectrometer for study of high mass objects created in relativistic heavy ion reactions

Experiment E864 at the Brookhaven AGS accelerator uses a high sensitivity, large acceptance spectrometer, designed to search for strangelets and other novel forms of matter produced in high-energy heavy ion collisions. The spectrometer has excellent acceptance and rate capabilities for measuring the production properties of known particles and nuclei such as (p) over bar, (d) over bar and He-6. The experiment uses a magnetic spectrometer and employs redundant time of flight and position detectors and a hadronic calorimeter. In this paper we describe the design and performance of the spectrometer. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved