Testing prototypes of novel radiator for LHCb-RICH

The LHCb experiment at CERN aims to look for signals for physics beyond the standard model in particle physics. The data from Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector (RICH) in LHCb are used to identify the hadronic particles that are produced in proton-proton collisions in different momentum ranges. The particle identification performance of the current detector in the 1-10 GeV/c range needs a significant improvement. For this an R&D project to use a new type of radiator using photonic crystals is underway. In a laboratory at CERN, prototypes of crystals will be exposed to charged particles from a source and the Cherenkov photons created will be detected using multianode photomultiplier tubes (MaPMTs). The data collected will be compared with expectations from optical simulations. These simulations use the solutions of Maxwell’s equations based on the quantum mechanical properties of the crystals. The MaPMTs and the optical components outside the crystals are simulated using GEANT4 and analysis involve using the ROOT software framework at CERN to manipulate histograms.