Silica Aerogel Cherenkov Counters for the Isotope Matter-Antimatter Experiment
Abstract
We describe the design, development, and performance of the large area aerogel Cherenkov counters employed in the Isotope Matter-Antimatter Experiment (IMAX), a balloon-borne, magnet spectrometer. IMAX incorporated two Cherenkov counters containing silica aerogels of refractive index n=1.055 for velocity measurement and electron/muon background rejection. We describe aerogel baking techniques which were found to improve measured light output from 30% to more than 100% for individual aerogel blocks, as well as mounting techniques that preserved the integrity of the aerogel radiators during shipping, balloon flight, and parachute landing. The instrument flew successfully from Lynn Lake, Manitoba, Canada, on 16 July 1992, remaining at float for ~16 hours. Laboratory measurements and analysis of pre-flight data on the counters' performance are presented.
Additional Information
© 1993 University of Calgary. We thank Bob Golden and the NMSU-BBMF crew for providing overall payload support. Glen Albritton and Caltech's Central Engineering Service were instrumental in the construction of the counters. This research was supported in part by NASA grant NAGW-1919. One of us (AWL) thanks the NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program tor its support.Additional details
Identifiers
- Eprint ID
- 43794
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20140212-101632365
Related works
- Describes
- http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993ICRC....2..524L (URL)
Funding
- NASA
- NAGW-1919
- NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program
Dates
- Created
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2014-02-24Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2020-03-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field