A high-efficiency Transition Radiation Detector for high-counting-rate environments

A prototype Transition Radiation Detector (TRD) with a new configuration was built and tested. The prototype consists of two individual multiwire proportional chambers (MWPC) that share a thin common central pad readout electrode. Measurements with a 55Fe source and e, ππ and p of 1.5 GeV/c   showed a very good energy, position resolution and a better e/πe/π discrimination compared to the standard structure with a single MWPC. No significant deterioration of the resolutions is observed up to counting rates of 2×105particlescm-2s-1. These results open the possibility of constructing TRDs with a high e/πe/π discrimination and granularity even for high-counting rate experiments with a reasonable number of layers.