C. Deveaux

Tests of the CBM Rich readout and Daq prototype

The CBM RICH detector is an integral component of the future CBM experiment at FAIR, providing efficient electron identification and pion suppression necessary for the measurement of rare dileptonic probes in heavy ion collisions. An overview of the CBM RICH readout and DAQ system prototype is given, consisting of the PADIWA preamplifier-discriminator board, the TDC-HUB board TRBv3, and DAQ and analysis code in the CbmRoot framework. The laboratory setup built for studying the timing characteristics of the readout chain and the analysis results obtained using the laboratory measurements are presented. The fine time calibration and inter-channel delay correction techniques and their implementation and effect are discussed.

The CBM RICH detector

The main task of the future Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment (CBM), to be operated at the FAIR facility at GSI, Darmstadt, is the exploration of the properties of super-dense nuclear matter. The search for in-medium modifications of hadrons, the study of the transition from dense hadronic matter to quark-gluon matter, and the possible location of a critical endpoint in the QCD phase diagram of strongly interacting matter are the most important physics goals of CBM. Detailed measurements of di-leptons stemming from low-mass vector-mesons and charmonium have a large potential to shed light on the existence of such effects. The Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector of the CBM experiment aims at a clean and efficient electron identification. It is foreseen to use CO2 as radiator gas and equip the detector with a focussing mirror system and multi-anode photomultiplier tubes as photon detector. In this paper we present selected results of R&D studies and beam test measurements of the detector prototype performed in fall 2011 and 2012 at the CERN/PS with a mixed electron-pion beam.