Measurements of Carbon ion fragmentation on a thin gold target by the FIRST collaboration at GSI
Abstract
The FIRST (Fragmentation of Ions Relevant for Space and Therapy) experiment, carried out at GSI laboratory, is designed and built by an international collaboration from France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The experiment aims to study the interactions of a 12C ion beam with thin targets, in particular to measure the double differential cross section related to the fragmentation of carbon ions. The first set of data was taken using, as projectiles, 12C ions of energy 400 MeV/nucleon. The experimental setup consists of two parts: the forward region, dedicated to the measurement of the fragments emitted at low polar angle (.6°) with respect to the beam direction and the interaction region, whose detectors aim to measure the light fragments covering a larger polar angle range (up to 40°). The reconstruction algorithms were tuned and validated using the FLUKA simulation software. The results, in terms of differential cross sections as a function of angle and energy, are reported here.