The PANDA detector at the international accelerator Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research in Europe (FAIR) addresses fundamental questions of hadron physics. Experiments concerning charmonium spectroscopy, the search for hybrids and glueballs and the interaction of hidden and open charm particles with nucleons and nuclei will be performed with antiproton beams impinging on hydrogen or nuclear targets. Cooled beams allow the precision scan of resonances in formation experiments. The momentum range of the antiproton beam between 1.5 GeV/c and 15 GeV/c tests predictions by perturbation theory and will reveal deviations originating from strong QCD. An excellent hadronic particle identification will be accomplished by DIRC (Detection of Internally Reflected Cherenkov light) counters. The design for the barrel region is based on the successful BaBar DIRC with several key improvements, such as fast photon timing and a compact imaging region. DIRC designs based on different radiator geometries with several focusing options were studied in simulation. The performance of each design was characterized in terms of photon yield and single photon Cherenkov angle resolution. Selected design options were implemented in prototypes and tested with hadronic particle beams at GSI and CERN.
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