TIME OF FLIGHT DETECTOR FOR THE SUPERHIGH MOMENTUM SPECTROMETER AT JEFFERSON LABORATORY

The beam energy upgrade (from 6 to 12 GeV) of Jefferson Lab is one of the main priorities identified by NSF’s Nuclear Science Advisory Committee in its 2009 report. This $300M project will also require the upgrade of the experimental equipment. In Hall C the existing High Momentum Spectrometer will be paired with a new Super High Momentum Spectrometer (SHMS). The JMU Particle and Nuclear Physics group is in charge of designing, building, and testing the scintillator hodoscope (a device capable of measuring the velocity of subatomic particles traveling at speeds close to the speed of light), an essential component of the SHMS. The device we designed and built at JMU consists of a series of prismatic plastic scintillators about 3 feet in length coupled at both ends to photomultiplier tubes (PMT) that translate the light produced by energetic particles passing through into an electrical signal. The scintillating material, the PMTs, as well as the completed assembly need to be thoroughly tested. To test the efficiency of particle detection along the length of the scintillator a movable hodoscope was designed to harness cosmic rays. The triple and quadruple coincidence signal produced by the test stand was recorded and subsequently analyzed using a JMU developed C++ program. Progress on this project was presented and approved at several Jefferson Lab reviews. In this presentation we will document the testing of the photomultiplier tubes and bases, the construction of the scintillator detectors to be used by this hodoscope, as well as the testing of the finished detectors via cosmic radiation.

Additional Abstract Information

Student(s): Matthew C. Burton

Department: Justice Studies, Sociology

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Gabriel Niculescu

Type: Oral

Year: 2012