Aerogel mass production for the CLAS12 RICH: Novel characterization methods and optical performance

A large area ring-imaging Cherenkov detector has been designed to provide clean hadron identification capabilities in the momentum range from 3 GeV/c to 8 GeV/c for the CLAS12 experiments at the Jefferson Lab upgraded 12 GeV continuous electron beam accelerator facility. The adopted solution foresees a novel hybrid optics design based on an aerogel radiator, composite mirrors and densely-packed and highly-segmented photon detectors. Cherenkov light will either be imaged directly (forward tracks) or after two mirror reflections (large angle tracks). The status of the aerogel mass-production and the assessment studies of the aerogel optical performance are here reported.