Development of the Readout Chamber of the ALICE Transition Radiation Detector and Evaluation of its Physics Performance in the Quarkonium Sector

In the central barrel of the ALICE detector, resonances are proved, among other channels,through their electronic decays. Doing so, the abundantly produced pions make the electrons identification complicated. Therefore the adoption of an electron-pion separator, like the Transition Radiation Detector (TRD), is of particular importance. This thesis went along with the first real dimension TRD prototype from the first theoretical considerations of its readout chamber over testing it for its mechanical and electrostatical stability up to determining its pion rejection capability. It was shown that the prototype is stabile, both mechanically and electrostatically. With 90% of the electrons identifide, the TRD allows to reject 98% of the pions for particles with momenta at 2~GeV/c. The gained data were implemented in a fast simulations package, which includes three of the ALICE central detectors: ITS, TPC, and TRD. With 3.8 x 10^{-3} of the central events recorded in one ALICE year, the detector physics performance was studied in the Quarkonium sector. The pion rejection was considered with and without a TRD contribution. It was found that only with the TRD it will be possible to detect the Quarkonium resonances significantly. The significance of the recorded signal is at the level of 95% of an ideal situation where the pions are perfectly identified.

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Universität Heidelberg

Year

2004

Author dc:creator

• Mahmoud, Tariq

Contributors dc:contributor

• Stachel, Johanna,

Repository record source_url

http://www.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/archiv/4804

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de:4804