The TORCH detector is being developed for low-momentum particle identification, combining time-of-flight and Cherenkov techniques to achieve charged particle pi/K/p separation up to 10 GeV/c over a flight distance of 10m. This requires a timing resolution of 70 ps for single photons. Based on an existing scalable design, production and testing of a TORCH readout system has been undertaken over the past year, and a novel customized Micro Channel Plate (MCP) photomultiplier device with 128-channels has been instrumented. This paper will report on the development of the readout system which is being used to measure time-of-flight in a test-beam, and its performance. We will also discuss the communication and data alignment between the TORCH system and the TimePix3 telescope in order to provide track reconstruction.
Edoardo Charbon, Mahdi Aminian, Lin Qi