Transition radiation detectors for hadron separation in the forward direction of LHC experiments

Abstract

Studies in many areas of particle and astroparticle physics require a good knowledge of hadron spectra produced at small angles to the primary particle direction, e.g. in the TeV energy range at the LHC. The present work is dedicated to development of a particle identification technique based on the transition radiation produced by highly relativistic particles. Dedicated experimental studies were carried out and simulation models were developed to reproduce experimental data obtained with different prototypes. On the basis of these studies, the possibility of making detectors able to provide hadron composition measurement with high accuracy and identify particles with high efficiency in the forward experiments at the LHC was demonstrated. Two concepts of large scale TRDs are proposed: the straw TRD and the GaAs/straw TRD. They allow the reconstruction of hadron spectra with accuracy about or below 1% and to identify particles with high efficiency in individual events. As an example, suppression of the combinatorial background was demonstrated for the D0→K−π+ and D̄0→K+π− decays.