A long base line RICH with a 27 kton water target and radiator for detection of neutrino oscillations

A 27 kton water volume is considered as a target for a long base line neutrino beam from CERN to Gran Sasso. Charged secondaries from the neutrino interactions produce Cherenkov photons in water which are imaged as rings by a spherical mirror. oton detector elements are 14 400 photomultipliers (PMs) of 127 mm diameter with single photon sensitivity. A coincidence signal of ≈300 PMs in time with the SPS beam burst starts readout of the PMs in bins of 1 ns over a period of 100 ns. This defines the effective detector granularity to be 1.44 Mpixels, quite sufficient for the maximum expected event size of ≈2 × 104 photon hit points. um, direction and velocity of hadrons and muons are determined from the width, center and radius of the rings, respectively. Momentum is measured if multiple scattering dominates the ring width, as is the case for most of the particles of interest. Thresholds in water for muons, pions, kaons and protons are 0.12, 0.16, 0.55 and 1.05 GeV/c, respectively. um resolutions of 1–10%, mass resolutions of 5–50 MeV and direction resolutions of <1 mrad, are achievable. ons and gammas can be measured with energy resolution σE/E≈7%/E(GeV) and with direction resolution ≈1 mrad. tector can be sited above ground because it is directional and the SPS beam is pulsed thus it has excellent rejection of cosmic ray background.