AEgIS Experiment at CERN: Design and Commissioning of SARA (Scintillator Assemblies to Reveal Annihilations)

TL;DR

The paper describes the design, development, and testing of SARA, a scintillator-based detection system for measuring antihydrogen time-of-flight at CERN's AEgIS experiment, emphasizing simplicity and versatility.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, cost-effective scintillator assembly with integrated electronics for antihydrogen detection, combining structural and functional design features.

Findings

Successful physical tests and simulations validated the design.

The system enables flexible coincidence detection modes.

The design is optimized for simplicity, versatility, and cost-effectiveness.

Abstract

SARA is the system of plastic scintillators coupled with silicon photomultipliers that will take part in the AEgIS experiment at CERN, measuring the time-of-flight of antihydrogen as it falls through a moir\'e deflectometer. Its development focused on simplicity, versatility and economy of the design and was supported by both physical tests and finite elements numerical simulations. The instrument's structure pairs the utilization of the scintillators as structural components with custom made 3D printed corner elements and the electronics allows selection between coincidence discrimination made on each scintillator and made between different scintillators.