Transition radiation detectors for electron identification beyond 1 GeV/c

Abstract Transition radiation detectors (TRDs) have been tested for the separation of electrons from pions in the momentum range between 1 and 6 GeV/ c . Foams as well as fibres and foils served as radiator materials while two types of chambers, a longitudinal drift chamber (DC) and a multiwire proportional chamber (MWPC), both of 16 mm depth and dominantly filled with xenon, were used for detecting the transition radiation photons with a setup of four chambers. Analyzing the data we compared the methods of mean, truncated mean and of maximum likelihood of the total charge measurements and several methods of cluster analysis. As a result of the total charge measurements performed at test beams at CERN and DESY we obtained about 1% pion contamination at 90% electron efficiency for the polypropylene materials in the configuration of four modules with a total length of 40 cm. An improvement by a factor of about two for the electron/pion discrimination can be obtained in the case of a detailed analysis of the clusters.