Noise simulation and rejection for the DELPHI Barrel Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector

The performance of Ring Imaging Cherenkov detectors is severely affected by the background noise due to the necessity of detecting single electrons. Furthermore, in the majority of the existing RICHs, the charged particles to be identified also cross the sensitive area of the apparatus thus creating secondary effects. The different noise sources and the background behaviour have been studied for the DELPHI RICH in order to efficiently clean the Cherenkov rings from the background while preserving the majority of the signal. Particular care has been taken to optimize the parameters of the Cherenkov image “cleaning” for the gas and the liquid radiators separately. For Z0 hadronic decays 70% background rejection has been achieved, whilst 85% of the signal has been retained. This paper also presents a simulation of the noise producing mechanisms where ionization electrons, δ-rays, feedback electrons created during avalanches and electronic noise are modeled according to the measured parameters. Good agreement between data and simulation has been achieved.