Wednesday 21 May 2014 

Speaker: Prof Neville Harnew (Oxford University)


Title: "The TORCH time-of-flight detector for the LHCb Upgrade" 

Abstract: The Time Of internally Reflected CHerenkov light (TORCH) 
collaboration is developing an innovative high-precision time-of-flight 
detector which will be suitable for large areas, up to tens of square 
metres, with a particular application for the upgraded LHCb experiment. 
The TORCH detector provides a time-of-flight measurement from the 
imaging of prompt Cherenkov photons emitted in a 1 cm thick quartz 
radiator plate. The photons propagate by total internal reflection 
to the edge of the plate and are then focused onto an array of 
Micro Channel Plate (MCP) photon detectors at the periphery of 
the detector. The goal is to achieve a timing resolution of 15 ps 
per particle over a flight distance of 10 m, which will allow 
particle identification in the challenging intermediate momentum 
region up to 10 GeV/c. TORCH utilizes custom-made MCPs manufactured 
by our industrial partners, Photek Limited, UK. Prototype MCPs 
have circular housing (50 mm diameter) with a rectangular active 
area (26.5 mm x 26.5 mm) and 32 x 32 pixels, read out by NINO chips. 
This geometry represents a quarter-size layout of the active area 
for the final TORCH MCP design, with comparable pitch density. 
The overall status of the project, including the progress of the 
MCP and electronics development, will be presented. TORCH simulation 
and reconstruction studies in the LHCb environment will also be discussed.