[en] The present status of RICH counters is reviewed, with particular emphasis on the trends in this sector of ionising particle detectors. Some technological solutions to the various technical challenges related to these detectors are also discussed

[en] The status of the art in the field of gaseous photon detectors is outlined with emphasis to applications in Cherenkov imaging counters. The R and D studies aiming at novel gaseous photon detectors and their perspectives are discussed.

No abstract available

[en] The microprogrammable processor ESOP has been introduced in the trigger system of a small angle elastic scattering experiment on a polarized proton beam at the Saturne synchrotron. Its implementation in a data acquisition system based on a Hewlett-Packard computer is described and preliminary results on the performance of a straight tracks rejecting algorithm are presented

[en] The optical transparency of perfluorocarbons used as Cherenkov media is of prime importance to many Ring Imaging Cherenkov detectors. We will in this paper show that the main photon absorbers in these fluids are hydrocarbons with double or triple bonds. We will moreover discuss a process which can eliminate these pollutants and restore the intrinsic excellent optical transparency of these fluids in the VUV range

[en] A large acceptance gas RICH detector is presently under construction for the spectrometer of the COMPASS Experiment. Its design parameters are presented and the main characteristics of the vessel, the mirrors system, the photon detectors and the front-end electronics are discussed together with some results from prototyping activities

[en] The set-up of the COMPASS experiment (NA58 at CERN SPS) consists of two spectrometers (a large-angle one followed by a small-angle spectrometer) both equipped with a gas RICH (RICH 1 and RICH 2) for hadron identification. RICH 1 is currently under construction, while RICH 2 will be added at a second stage. RICH 1 design parameters and technological choices are discussed

[en] In this paper we describe the design of the re-configurable front-end boards (BORA boards) for the 82944 channel RICH-1 (Ring Imaging CHerenkov) of the Compass Collaboration (NA58). The front-end electronics controls the sample-and-hold operation after the arrival of an event trigger, acquires the analog voltages from the pre-amp VLSI and converts them into 10 bits at a rate of 20 Ms/s per analog channel. The digitized analogue values are then written into FIFOs. A subsequent operation compares the readings of each and every channel with corresponding programmable thresholds, and transmits those values larger than the threshold, together with the channel number, through an optical fiber to subsequent processing stages of the acquisition system. The overall operation of the board is controlled and supervised by a fast DSP. The availability of local intelligence allows the board to present innovative features such as: to be part of a computer network that connects several similar boards of the detector with a PC. The presence of the DSP allows testing the operability and linearity of the analog channels; and creating engineering frames containing local temperatures and voltages and transmitting the results through the network. The operator can reconfigure the hardware and software of the board by downloading programs from the PC

[en] RICHONE is the pattern recognition and PID code for COMPASS RICH-1. RICHONE is part of CORAL, the COMPASS software system, a C++ framework developed within the collaborations using up-to-date techniques and tools

No abstract available