A ring imaging Cherenkov detector for CLAS12

The energy increase of Jefferson Labʹs Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) to 12 GeV promises to greatly extend the physics reach of its experiments. This will include an upgrade of the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) to CLAS12, offering unique possibilities to study internal nucleon dynamics. For this excellent hadron identification over the full kinematical range of 3–8 GeV/c is essential. This will be achieved by the installation of a Ring Imaging CHerenkov (RICH) detector. A novel hybrid imaging design incorporating mirrors, aerogel radiators and Hamamatsu H8500 multianode photomultiplier tubes is proposed. Depending on the incident particle track angle, Cherenkov light will either be imaged directly or after two reflections and passes through the aerogel. The detector design is described, along with preliminary results on individual detector components tests and from recent testbeam studies.