The High Acceptance Di Electron Spectrometer (HADES) (http://www-hades.gsi.de) is a versatile detector for a precise spectroscopy of e+e- pairs (dielectrons) and charged hadrons produced in proton, pion and heavy ion induced reactions in a 1 - 3.5 GeV kinetic beam energy region. The detector has been set-up in 1996-2002 at GSI (https://www.gsi.de) by an international collaboration of 19 institutions from 10 European countries. The main experimental goal is to investigate the properties of dense nuclear matter created in the course of heavy ion collisions and ultimately learn about in-medium hadron properties. Overview talks with presentation of HADES physics can be found in http://www-hades.gsi.de/?q=node/10. In the following years, HADES will operate in the new accelerator SIS100 at the future FAIR facility (http://www.faircenter.eu/) with the mission of providing high-quality dielectron data at baryon densities and temperatures not accessible by other detectors, neither in the past nor in the foreseeable future. In recent years HADES has produced a series of relevant physics results, mostly with elementary particles or light ions owing to granularity limitations in the forward time-of-flight (TOF) detector. A list of publication summarizing this results can be found in http://www-hades.gsi.de/?q=node/204. The main contribution of LIP team to the collaboration was the design and construction of a high granularity (1200 channels in 8 m2), high resolution (70 ps (0,00000000007s), the time that it takes the light to cross a distance of 3cm) timing RPC (Resistive Plate Chambers) based TOF wall. This new system reduced the limitations imposed to the spectrometer by the old scintillator based TOF that prevent it to measure with heavy systems, a fundamental part of the physics program. In 2012, the RPC-TOF wall took part for the first time in a very successful heavy-ion production run with Au-Au collisions at 1.25AGeV during 5 weeks (one of the main objectives of the physics program). After accurate calibration, the RPC-TOF wall showed an excellent performance.

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Contacts

Group Leader:  

Alberto Blanco