The Lund–York–Cologne Calorimeter (LYCCA): Concept, design and prototype developments for a FAIR-NUSTAR detector system to discriminate relativistic heavy-ion reaction products

The concept, design and prototype developments for the Lund–York–Cologne CAlorimeter (LYCCA) is presented. LYCCA is a modular device for the NUclear STructure, Astrophysics and Reactions (NUSTAR) science pillar of the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) at Darmstadt, Germany. LYCCA is designed to discriminate heavy ions produced in nuclear reactions induced by relativistic radioactive ion beams. Measurements of energy loss, total energy, and time-of-flight allow the derivation of proton number, Z, and mass number, A, of the reaction products. LYCCA-inherent tracking of the flight paths of the reaction products enables coincident HIgh-resolution in-beam γ-ray SPECtroscopy (HISPEC) of atomic nuclei far from the line of β-stability