TORCH: a large area time-of-flight detector for particle identification

TL;DR

TORCH is a novel time-of-flight detector designed for the LHCb upgrade, demonstrating promising single-photon timing resolution in beam tests, enabling effective particle identification in high-energy physics experiments.

Contribution

This paper introduces the TORCH detector concept and reports successful beam test results with a prototype achieving sub-100 ps timing resolution.

Findings

Single-photon resolution better than 100 ps achieved

Successful operation of a small-scale demonstrator in beam tests

Potential for effective particle identification in LHCb upgrade

Abstract

TORCH is a time-of-flight detector that is being developed for the Upgrade II of the LHCb experiment, with the aim of providing charged particle identification over the momentum range 2-10 GeV/c. A small-scale TORCH demonstrator with customised readout electronics has been operated successfully in beam tests at the CERN PS. Preliminary results indicate that a single-photon resolution better than 100 ps can be achieved.