PT Journal
AU Brook, NH
   Castillo Garcia, L
   Conneely, TM
   Cussans, D
   van Dijk, MWU
   Fohl, K
   Forty, R
   Frei, C
   Gao, R
   Gys, T
   Hancock, TH
   Harnew, N
   Lapington, J
   Milnes, J
   Piedigrossi, D
   Rademacker, J
   Ros Garcia, A
TI Testbeam studies of a TORCH prototype detector
SO Nuclear Instruments & Methods in Physics Research A
JI Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A
PY 2018
BP 256
EP 268
VL 908
DI 10.1016/j.nima.2018.07.023
LA English
DE Cherenkov radiation; Particle identification; TORCH; MCP-PMT
AB TORCH is a novel time-of-flight detector that has been developed to provide charged-particle identification between 2 and 10 GeV/c momentum. TORCH combines arrival times from multiple Cherenkov photons produced within a 10 mm-thick quartz radiator plate, to achieve a 15 ps time-of-flight resolution per incident particle. A customised Micro-Channel Plate photomultiplier tube (MCP-PMT) and associated readout system utilises an innovative charge-sharing technique between adjacent pixels to obtain the necessary 70 ps time resolution of each Cherenkov photon. A five-year R&D programme has been undertaken, culminating in the construction of a small-scale prototype TORCH module. In testbeams at CERN, this prototype operated successfully with customised electronics and readout system. A full analysis chain has been developed to reconstruct the data and to calibrate the detector. Results are compared to those using a commercial Planacon MCP-PMT, and single photon resolutions approaching 80 ps have been achieved. The photon counting efficiency was found to be in reasonable agreement with a GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulation of the detector. The small-scale demonstrator is a precursor to a full-scale TORCH module (with a radiator plate of 660 x 1250 x 10 mm(3)), which is currently under construction.
ER