A broad range spectrometer PIK for medium-energy meson spectroscopy

A broad range spectrometer, PIK, has been constructed for the study of Λ hypernuclei via the (π+, K+) reaction. The spectrometer can also be used for nuclear spectroscopy with medium-energy meson beams. It consists of two independent spectrometers: one analyzes the incident beam momentum, and the other determines the momentum of the scattered particle. The latter spectrometer is characterized by a large solid angle of 15–22 msr, a broad range momentum acceptance of 0.55–1.1 GeV/c, a wide angular acceptance of 11°, and a short flight path length of 4.5 m. The scattered particle is identified by the use of silica aerogel Cherenkov counters and Lucite Cherenkov counters and by measuring its time-of-flight. The performance of the spectrometer is examined by the (π+, K+) reaction on a 12C target at Pπ = 1.05 GeV/c and by the (π+, p) reaction on a CH2 target.