FASA - A 4π detector setup for the investigation of target multifragmentation in nucleus-nucleus collisions

Abstract The FASA setup, installed at the JINR synchrophasotron providing light ion beams with energies up to 3.65 GeV/nucleon, is a fragment multiplicity detector, consisting of 55 scintillation counters made of thin CsI(TI) films, five time-of-flight telescopes and a large-area position-sensitive parallel-plate avalanche chamber. The basic aim of the device is to determine with high precision the energy, mass, and velocity of the fragments detected in the time-of-flight telescopes (TOF) while for the other fragments global multiplicity information is obtained. Therefore, the TOF telescopes serve as a trigger. In addition, angular correlations and distributions and relative velocity correlations for coincident fragments can be measured with the FASA setup.