Status of the TORCH time-of-flight project

Journal article

TORCH is a time-of-flight detector, designed to provide charged π∕K particle identification up to a momentum of 10GeV/c for a 10m flight path. To achieve this level of performance, a time resolution of 15 ps per incident particle is required. TORCH uses a plane of quartz of 1 cm thickness as a source of Cherenkov photons, which are then focussed onto square Micro-Channel Plate Photomultipliers (MCP-PMTs) of active area 53 × 53mm2, segmented into 8 × 128 pixels equivalent. A small-scale TORCH demonstrator with a customised MCP-PMT and associated readout electronics has been successfully operated in a 5GeV/c mixed pion/proton beam at the CERN PS facility. Preliminary results indicate that a single-photon resolution better than 100ps can be achieved. The expected performance of a full-scale TORCH detector for the Upgrade II of the LHCb experiment is also discussed.

Authors: Harnew, N; Bhasin, S; Blake, T; Brook, N; Conneely, T

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Journal: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
• Publication date: 2018-12-07
• Acceptance date: 2018-12-01
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2018.12.007
• EISSN: 1872-9576
• ISSN: 0168-9002
• Keywords: particle identification; cherenkov radiation; micro-channel plate photomultipliers; LHCb upgrade; time-of-flight