Performance of a time-of-flight silicon strip telescope in the temperature range 20 C to -55 C

A cold silicon strip telescope for time-of-flight determination operating at -55 C has been tested using a hadron beam at Saturne II, Saclay. We present performance tests of the telescope, the time-of-flight distributions between pairs of silicon hodoscopes and their dependence on temperature. A detailed description of the apparatus, the refrigerator system and the calibration procedures is also reported. A linear relationship between the time resolution and the temperature of the apparatus is measured. An improvement of a factor 2 in the time-of-flight resolution is observed when the temperature decreases from +20 C to -55 C. (orig.)