TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of a large-area aerogel Cherenkov counter onboard BESS
AU - Asaoka, Y.
AU - Abe, K.
AU - Yoshimura, K.
AU - Ishino, M.
AU - Fujikawa, M.
AU - Orito, S.
N1 - Funding Information:
S. O. sincerely thanks H. Sato and K. Kurosawa for contributions early in the R/D stage, being crucially important for the initialization of the work described in this paper. We appreciate supports in the manufacturing processes of the aerogel by Y. Shikaze, T. Yoshida, and Y. Watanabe, and valuable help by M. Motoki, H. Matsunaga, T. Sanuki, M. Sasaki, and other members of the BESS collaboration. This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. The analysis was performed using the computing facilities at ICEPP, University of Tokyo.
PY - 1998/11/21
Y1 - 1998/11/21
N2 - This paper describes the development of a threshold-type aerogel Cherenkov counter with a large sensitive area of 0.6m2 to be carried onboard the BESS rigidity spectrometer to detect cosmic-ray antiprotons. The design incorporates a large diffusion box containing 46 finemesh photomultipliers, with special attention being paid to achieving good performance under a magnetic field and providing sufficient endurance while minimizing material usage. The refractive index of the aerogel was chosen to be 1.03. By utilizing the muons and protons accumulated during the cosmic-ray measurements at sea level, a rejection factor of 104 was obtained against muons with β ≈ 1, while keeping 97% efficiency for protons below the threshold.
AB - This paper describes the development of a threshold-type aerogel Cherenkov counter with a large sensitive area of 0.6m2 to be carried onboard the BESS rigidity spectrometer to detect cosmic-ray antiprotons. The design incorporates a large diffusion box containing 46 finemesh photomultipliers, with special attention being paid to achieving good performance under a magnetic field and providing sufficient endurance while minimizing material usage. The refractive index of the aerogel was chosen to be 1.03. By utilizing the muons and protons accumulated during the cosmic-ray measurements at sea level, a rejection factor of 104 was obtained against muons with β ≈ 1, while keeping 97% efficiency for protons below the threshold.
KW - Aerogel Cherenkov counter
KW - BESS
KW - Cosmic-ray antiproton
KW - Diffusion box
KW - Finemesh photomultiplier tube
KW - Particle identification
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0032179875&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0032179875&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S0168-9002(98)00772-4
DO - 10.1016/S0168-9002(98)00772-4
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0032179875
SN - 0168-9002
VL - 416
SP - 236
EP - 242
JO - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
JF - Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
IS - 2-3
ER -