Design, construction, operation and performance of the Hadron Blind Detector for the PHENIX experiment at RHIC

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 67 KB
• Volume: 639
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0168-9002
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2011.03.044

✦ Synopsis

A hadron blind detector (HBD) has been developed for an upgrade of the PHENIX experiment at RHIC. The detector installed in 2008 was successfully operated during the p þp run of 2009 and is presently taking AuþAu data at OsNN¼200 GeV. The HBD is a windowless Cherenkov detector, operated with pure CF 4 in a special proximity focus configuration. The detector consists of a 50 cm long radiator directly coupled to a triple GEM detector that has a CsI photocathode evaporated on the top face of the first GEM foil and a pad readout at the bottom of the GEM stack. A comprehensive report including, motivation, design, construction and operation of the detector will be given. In particular detailed studies of the detector performance will be presented including position resolution, gain calibration and stability, hadron rejection factor, electron-hadron separation, single electron detection efficiency, figure of merit N 0 , number of photoelectrons per electron and single vs. double hit distinction.