Use of silica aerogels in Cherenkov counters

Silica aerogel is widely used as a radiator for Cherenkov detectors. It is a highly porous, low-density, and transparent substance with refractive index n ranging between the values of n < 1.001 for gaseous and n ≈ 1.3 for condensed phases. The review is devoted to the consideration of various factors affecting the identification of particles in Cherenkov counters: the chromatic aberration, the number of photoelectrons, and the optical-system light transmittance. A brief review is given for principal methods of aerogel production, its manufacturers, optical and physical characteristics of aerogel samples, their transparency, scattering and absorption lengths, and number of photoelectrons. The use of silica aerogels in various threshold Cherenkov counters at such installations as BELLE (KEK), TASSO (DESY), and KEDR (VEPP-4M) is considered. In recent years, many research works have been carried out at the CERN proton synchrotron using various prototypes of Cherenkov counters. This review considers some of them. The progress achieved in manufacturing high-quality aerogel samples including the multilayer ones and the results of the tests were beneficial for implementing these materials in the Ring-imaging Cherenkov (RICH) counters at HERMES, developing the proximity focusing RICH detectors, and for proposing RICH detectors for the LHCb project at the CERN ring collider and at the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station.

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