The focusing DIRC: An innovative PID detector

The FDIRC (Focusing Detector of Internally Reflected Cherenkov light) is a new concept of PID (Particle IDentification) detector aimed at separating kaons from pions up to a few GeV/c. It is the successor of the BABAR DIRC and benefits from the knowledge accumulated with a first FDIRC prototype built and operated at SLAC. The FDIRC is intended to be used in an environment with a luminosity 100 times higher than for BABAR and Belle. Backgrounds will be higher as well; yet, the FDIRC has been designed to perform at least as well as the BABAR DIRC. The main improvement is a complete redesign of the photon camera, moving from a huge tank of ultra-pure water to much smaller focusing cameras with solid fusedsilica optics. Furthermore, the detection chain will be 10 times faster than in BABAR to reject more background and to measure more accurately Cherenkov angles. This is achieved using H-8500 MaPMTs and a new front-end electronics (FEE) with significantly improved timing precision, higher hit rate capability, and small dead time. A full-scale FDIRC prototype covering 1/12th of the barrel azimuth is installed at SLAC and has just started recording cosmic-ray data. In this paper, we summarize the FDIRC design, present the status of the prototype test at SLAC and review the ongoing work to analyse the data.