Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2014) 129: 91
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2014-14091-5

Technical Report

A very high momentum particle identification detector

¹ Chicago State University, Chicago, IL, USA
² Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary
³ Gangneung-Wonju National University, Dept. of Physics, Gangneung, South Korea
⁴ Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
⁵ Pusan National University, Dept. of Physics, Pusan, South Korea
⁶ Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, India
⁷ Università degli Studi di Bari, Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica “M. Merlin” & INFN Sezione di Bari, Bari, Italy
⁸ UNICAMP, University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil
⁹ University of Houston, Houston, USA
¹⁰ Università di Salerno, Salerno, Italy
¹¹ University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA
¹² Wigner RCP of the HAS, Budapest, Hungary
¹³ CERN, CH1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland

^* e-mail: m.weber@cern.ch

Received: 1 November 2013
Revised: 25 March 2014
Accepted: 27 March 2014
Published online: 23 May 2014

Abstract

A new detector concept has been investigated to extend the capabilities of heavy-ion collider experiments, represented here through the ALICE detector, in the high transverse momentum (p _T region. The resulting Very High Momentum Particle Identification Detector (VHMPID) performs charged hadron identification on a track-by-track basis in the 5 GeV/c < p < 25 GeV/c momentum range and provides heavy-ion experiments with new opportunities to study parton-medium interactions at RHIC and LHC energies, where the creation of deconfined quark-gluon matter has been established. The detector is based on novel advances to the pressurized gaseous ring imaging Cherenkov (RICH) concept, which yield a very compact, high resolution addition to existing heavy-ion experiments. We conclude that in order for the device to yield statistically significant results not only for single particle measurements, but also for di-hadron and jet-tagged correlation studies, it has to cover contiguously up to 30% of a central barrel detector in radial direction. This will allow, for the first time, identified charged hadron measurements in jets. In this paper we summarize the physics motivations for such a device, as well as its conceptual design, layout, and integration into ALICE.