Time of Flight
Charged particles are identified in ALICE by Time-Of-Flight (TOF); heavier particles are slower and so take longer to reach the outer layers of the detector. For its TOF system ALICE uses detectors called Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC). There are approximately 160 000 MRPC pads with time resolution of about 100 ps distributed over the large surface of 150 square meters. Using the tracking information from other detectors every track firing a sensor is identified.
Read more about this topic: A Large Ion Collider Experiment
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