TH-PHD-2018-008

The PANDA experiment at the FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) accel- erator complex in Darmstadt is designed to study hadronic interactions of antiprotons with momenta up to 15 GeV/c, scattered off an internal proton target. For the purpose of excellent particle identification, two Cherenkov detectors for the target spectrometer are currently under development: The Barrel DIRC with a cylindrical shape around the target and the Endcap Disc DIRC (EDD) that will be placed in the forward endcap region of the PANDA target spectrometer.
The EDD covers the polar angle range 5◦ ≤ θ ≤ 22◦. It is designed to separate pions and kaons up to momenta of p = 4 GeV/c with a minimum π/K separation power of 3 standard deviations. The desired detector performance regarding the Cherenkov angle resolution and photon yield for different setups and parameters has been validated with the help of Monte-Carlo simulations. One of the main goals was the implementation of the dedicated simulation and reconstruction algorithms in the analysis framework Pan- daRoot.
In addition to that, an analysis of a specific physics channel including the decay of the glueball candidate f0(1500) has been performed. New testbeam results obtained in the DESY facility with an upgraded detector prototype have been analyzed and compared with Monte-Carlo simulations in order to validate the desired detector resolution and photon yield.
The free running data acquisition in PANDA requires an online reconstruction for all detectors in combination with event filtering algorithms. As a feasibility study, as simple online reconstruction algorithm has been designed and tested on an FPGA board. It can be extended to provide event filtering in the final detector.
Furthermore, the upgrade of an existing device for cosmic muons in combination with a EDD prototype has been investigated. This test stand is planed to be used for detailed tests of the detector prototype and final detector.