Characteristics of multigap timing resistive plate chambers in the avalanche mode operation

We have built prototype multigap timing resistive plate chambers made of normal glass plates and a strip readout plane. We have investigated the characteristics of the prototype chambers in avalanche-mode operation by using cosmic ray muons. The efficiency is larger than 90 % and the time resolution is about 90 ps in the operational high-voltage plateau region, which extends at least 400 V. The fraction of the non-Gaussian tail in the time spectra is about 2 %, which has a negligible effect on the performance of the time-of-flight measurement. The results demonstrate that the current design of the multigap resistive plate chambers can be utilized for charged particle identification in collision experiments.