RICH DETECTOR AND SIMULATION OF AEROGEL TILES

A Hybrid Ring-imaging Cherenkov Detector (RICH), located in Hall-B at Jefferson Lab, is used to identify charged subatomic particles such as pions and kaons. RICH uses the momentum of resulting jet particles from electron scattering on a fixed target. These particles traverse a radiator called, Aerogel in this case. Aerogel is a dielectric material made up of silica and residues of metal oxides. Placing a beam of charged pions at 6 GeV behind the aerogel will produce Cherenkov radiation in the UV to the visible range. When a charged particle travels through the aerogel at a very high speed, the particles inside become dipoles. This polarization stretches the shape of the particles and if the incoming particle is moving faster than the speed of light in the medium, Cherenkov radiation is produced. My work consisted of the partition of the aerogel tiles for the RICH detector and the study of emitted Cherenkov radiation. This process is important for event reconstructions that will help with particle identification. Status of the RICH detector will be presented.