Kaon identification in the NA62 experiment at CERN

The NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS aims to collect about 100 events of the rare kaon decay K+→π+νν, with a signal-to-background ratio of 10/1. The main purpose is the measurement of the branching ratio of the decay with a 10% accuracy. NA62 will use a high-energy unseparated charged beam, with a kaon decay-in-flight technique. For the kaon identification a hydrogen gas-filled differential Cherenkov counter (CEDAR) is placed in the incoming beam. The CEDAR detector is required to achieve a kaon identification efficiency of at least 95% with a time resolution of about 100 ps.