Particle identification with COMPASS RICH-1

Abstract RICH-1 is a large size RICH detector in operation at the COMPASS experiment since 2001 and recently upgraded implementing a new photon detection system with increased performance. A dedicated software package has been developed to perform RICH-1 data reduction, pattern recognition and particle identification as well as a number of accessory tasks for detector studies. The software package, the algorithms implemented and the detector characterisation and performance are reported in detail.