The Time-of-Flight Technique for the HERMES Experiment

Abstract

This paper describes the use of the time-of-flight (TOF) technique as a particle identification method for the HERMES experiment. The time-of-flight is measured by two 1x4 m^2 scintillation hodoscopes that initially were designed for the first-level trigger only. However, the suitable time structure of the HERA electron beam allows an extension of their functions to also measure the TOF for low momentum hadron identification. Using only these conventional hodoscopes, good particle identification was achieved for protons and pions in the momentum range up to 2.9GeV/c and for kaons up to 1.5GeV/c.