CAPRICE98: a balloon-borne magnetic spectrometer equipped with a gas RICH and a silicon calorimeter to study cosmic rays

Abstract CAPRICE98 is a superconducting magnetic spectrometer, equipped with a gas RICH and a silicon calorimeter, launched from Ft. Sumner (USA), on the 28th of May 1998, by the WiZard collaboration. For the first time a gas RICH detector flew together with a silicon electromagnetic calorimeter, allowing mass resolved antiprotons, with E >18 GeV, to be detected. The detector configuration was completed by a time of flight for particle identification, and a set of three drift chambers for rigidity measurement. The science objectives are the study of antimatter in cosmic rays and the cosmic ray composition in the atmosphere with special focus on muons.