The CBM time of flight wall - System aspects

The Compressed Baryonic Matter spectrometer (CBM) is a future heavy ion experiment located at the Facility for Anti-proton and Ion Research (FAIR) in Darmstadt, Germany. The main goal of CBM is the investigation of the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter in the region of the highest baryon densities. In order to measure the necessary observables with unprecedented precision an excellent particle identification is required. The key element providing hadron identification at incident energies between 2 and 35 AGeV is a 120 m² large Time-of-Flight (ToF) wall composed of Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPC). In this contribution we will illustrate the current conceptual design of the ToF-wall which is based on a modular structure composed of super modules (SM). The various proposed RPC configurations in particular a prototype developed in Heidelberg as well as the resulting system aspects are discussed.