Development of a cylindrical scintillating fiber tracker for experiment E835 at FNAL

A tracking detector made of scintillating fibers wound on a cylinder is being developed at FNAL, for the experiment E835 (study of the spectroscopy of charmonium formed in pp annihilations, at the Fermilab Antiproton Accumulator). The tracker will be used for the measurement of the polar angle, i.e. of the longitudinal coordinate. The small amount of light from the fibers will be detected by solid state devices (Visible Light Photon Counters) with very high QE, currently being developed and tested by the D0 Fiber Tracking Group at FNAL. This paper reports the performance of a prototype fiber tracker, as measured at FNAL. We present results on light yield/mip, attenuation, efficiency, homogeneity of response and cross-talk. The data are then compared with Monte Carlo predictions. We measured an average number of 14 photoelectrons per mip and a very low noise level. An efficiency greater than 99% is foreseen for the future double layered tracker.