FARCOS: A versatile and modular Femtoscopy Array for Correlations and Spectroscopy

In the framework of multi-fragmentation experiments the evolution towards two- (or more) particle correlations with stable and radioactive beams calls for the development of a novel detection system featuring high angular and energy resolution and able to reconstruct the particles momentum at high precision. The proposed detection system, named FARCOS (Femtoscopy ARray for COrrelations and Spectroscopy) will be beneficial for different physical cases. To this aim we are building a prototype detection system featuring four telescopes. Each telescope features an active area of 6.4 cm × 6.4 cm and is composed of three detection stages. The first ΔE stage is a Double Sided Silicon Strip Detector (DSSSD), 300 μm thick, featuring 32 × 32 strips. The second ΔE stage is again a DSSSD, 1500 μm thick, featuring 32 × 32 strips. The third stage, acting as calorimeter, is composed by four CsI(Tl) crystals with an active area of 3.2 cm × 3.2 cm and an absorption length of 6 cm forming a 2 × 2 matrix. The scintillators are readout by a Silicon photodiode 300 μm thick. The paper presents the relevant features of FARCOS and the expected performance of the silicon detection layers, with a special focus on the requirements of the frontend electronics for the DSSSD and the qualification of the DSSSD. In addition we report the first results of the preliminary on-beam tests. © 2012 IEEE.