Status of the TORCH time-of-flight detector

The TORCH time-of-flight detector is designed for large-area coverage, up to 30 m(2), to provide particle identification between 2-10 GeV/c momentum over a flight distance of 10 m. The arrival times from Cherenkov photons produced within a quartz radiator plate of 10mm thickness are combined to achieve a 15 ps time-of-flight resolution per incident particle. Micro-Channel Plate Photomultiplier Tube (MCP-PMT) detectors of 53 x 53 mm(2) active area have been developed with industrial partners for the TORCH application. The MCP-PMT is read out using charge division to give a 128 x 8 effective granularity. Laboratory results of development MCP-PMTs will be described, and testbeam studies using a small-scale TORCH prototype module will be presented.