Numerical studies on effect of operating conditions and geometrical components on the timing response and efficiency of RPC

A detailed numerical simulation has been performed to investigate the timing properties of a standard RPC geometry in order to optimize its application in INO-ICAL experiment designed for studying atmospheric neutrinos. The timing information provided by the RPC is an important observable in the experiment to determine the direction of the neutrinos. Effects of various operating conditions and design components on the RPC timing response, mainly the average signal arrival time and the time resolution have been studied in this context. The dependence of the detector efficiency on the same parameters has also been presented.