A GEANT4 simulation study of BESⅢ endcap TOF upgrade

A GEANT4-based Monte-Carlo (MC) model is developed to study the performance of endcap time-of-flight (ETOF) at BESIII. It's found that the multiple scattering effects, mainly from the materials at the MDC endcap, can cause multi-hit on the ETOF's readout cell and significantly influence the timing property of ETOF. A multi-gap resistive plate chamber (MRPC) with a smaller readout cell structure is more suitable for the ETOF detector due to significantly reduced multi-hit rate (per channel), from 71.5% for currently-used scintillator-based ETOF to 21.8% or 16.7% for MRPC-based ETOF, depending on the readout pad size used. The timing performance of an MRPC ETOF is also improved. These simulation results suggest and guide an ETOF upgrade effort at BESIII