Results from a 20 scintillator bar time-of-flight test system located inside the 1.4 T CDF solenoid

This paper reports on a test time-of-flight (TOF) system that operated in the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) during pp̄ Tevatron collider operation at s=1.8 TeV in the fall 1995 running period. The TOF system consisted of 20 130×4×4 cm3 long Bicron BC408 scintillator bars, with each end of the bars fitted with a small compound parabolic concentrator and a 16-stage R5946 Hamamatsu fine-mesh photomultiplier. The electronics chain consisted of a custom designed preamplifier, constant fraction discriminator, and commercial TDC and ADC FASTBUS modules read out with the CDF data acquisition system. The counters were installed between the Central Tracking Chamber and the 1.4 T superconducting solenoid at a mean radius of 140 cm. We report a procedure for calculating the t0 time from all tracks in an event, the timing resolution, and the particle identification performance of this system.