The construction and operating characteristics of a cathode strip chamber system designed to measure the reaction vertices of a stopping kaon beam

M. W. Ahmed ^a, D. Androic^b, I. Bertovic^b, J. Bjoraker^c, R. Chrien^d, X. Cui^a, D. Dehnhard^c, A. Empl^a, M. Furic^b, J. Gerald^c, R. Gill^d, E. V. Hungerford^a, H. Juengst^c, K. J. Lan^a, J. H. Liu^c, C. L. Morris^e, J. M. O'Donnell^c, J. C. Peng^e, T. Petkovic^b, P. Pile^d, M. Planinic^b, C. M. Riedel^e, A. Rusek^d, R. Sutter^d, L. Tang^f, H. A. Thiessen^e, M. Youn^a and V. Zeps<sup>g

a</sup> Department of Physics, University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun, Houston, TX 77204-5506, USA
^b Department of Physics, University of Zagreb, Bijenicka 32 HR, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
^c School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Minnesota, 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
^d Brookhaven National Laboratory, Department of Physics, Upton, NY 11973, USA
^e Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
^f Hampton University, 12000 Jefferson Avenue, Newport News, VA 23606, USA
^g Department of Physics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA

Received 28 November 2000.  Available online 3 August 2001.
 

Abstract

The design, construction, and performance of a segmented-target, cathode-strip, tracking-detector is discussed. The chamber was made of low-Z materials in order to allow photons to leave the target region. It was used to determine the reaction vertex of stopping kaons, and was successfully operated in a high-intensity kaon beamline at the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The vertical and horizontal resolutions of the stopping kaon reaction positions were _X~0.454 mm and _Y~1.180 mm, respectively. The uncertainty in the longitudinal (Z) direction is given by one-half the thickness of a target segment.

Author Keywords: Cathode-strip detector; Stopped kaons; Hypernucleus; NMS

PACS classification codes: 29.40.Gx; 29.40.Cs; 21.80.+a