A novel experimental setup for rare events selection and its potential application to super-heavy elements search

The paper presents a novel instrumentation for rare events selection which was tested in our research of short-lived super-heavy elements production and detection. The instrumentation includes an active catcher multi-elements system and dedicated electronics. The active catcher located in the forward hemisphere is composed of 63 scintillator detection modules. Reaction products of damped collisions between heavy-ion projectiles and heavy-target nuclei are implanted in the fast plastic scintillators of the active catcher modules. The acquisition system trigger delivered by logical branch of the electronics allows to record the reaction products which decay via the alpha-particle emissions or spontaneous fission which take place between beam bursts. One microsecond wave form signal from FADCs contains information on heavy implanted nucleus as well as its decays.