Extensive Particle Identification with TPC and TOF at the STAR Experiment

M. Shao; O. Barannikova; X. Dong; Y. Fisyak; L. Ruan; P. Sorensen; Z. Xu

doi:10.1016/j.nima.2005.11.251

paper

Extensive Particle Identification with TPC and TOF at the STAR Experiment

arXiv:nucl-ex/0505026 · doi:10.1016/j.nima.2005.11.251

Abstract

Particle identification (PID) capabilities are studied by using the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) and a Time-Of-Flight (TOF) detector together at STAR. The identification capability of charged hadrons is greatly extended compared with that achieved by TPC and TOF separately. Particle spectra from p+p, d+Au collisions at $s_{_{N N}} = 200$ GeV and Au+Au collisions at $s_{_{N N}} = 62.4$ GeV are used to develop the methods. The transverse momentum ( $p_{T}$ ) ranges of $I ¨ $ , and $p (p ˉ)$ identification are from $\sim 0.3$ GeV/ $c$ to $\sim 10$ GeV/ $c$ . The high $p_{T}$ reach is limited by statistics in current data sets. An important conceptual advance was developed to identify electrons by using a combination of dE/dx in TPC and velocity information from the TOF detectors, which is important for future low-mass dilepton program at STAR.

19 pages, 22 figures, 3 tables, submitted to NIM A