SπRIT: A time-projection chamber for symmetry-energy studies

A time-projection chamber (TPC) called the SAMURAI Pion-Reconstruction and Ion-Tracker (SπRIT) has recently been constructed at Michigan State University as part of an international effort to constrain the symmetry-energy term in the nuclear Equation of State (EoS). The SπRIT TPC will be used in conjunction with the SAMURAI spectrometer at the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) at RIKEN to measure yield ratios for pions and other light isospin multiplets produced in central collisions of neutron-rich heavy ions, such as 132Sn+124Sn. The SπRIT TPC can function both as a TPC detector and as an active target. It has a vertical drift length of 50 cm, parallel to the magnetic field. Gas multiplication is achieved through the use of a multi-wire anode plane. Image charges, produced in the 12096 pads, are read out with the recently developed Generic Electronics for TPCs.