Integrated high-rate transition radiation detector and tracking chamber for the LHC

The development of an integrated transition radiation detector (TRD) and charged-particle tracker for use in an LHC detector is proposed. The purpose of such a detector is to identify electrons efficiently, while rejecting the potentially very large background, originating mainly from overlaps between an energetic pi-zero and a charged hadron, and from electron pairs. A low-mass structure of radiator materials and proportional straws will generate and detect transition radiation X-rays and will track charged particles. Readout for the straw signals, and trigger processors correlating the TRD signal with external detectors, will be developed. A small prototype, sufficient to contain a high-energy jet and followed by a fine-grained calorimeter, will be tested. An engineering prototype will be constructed to verify the design for a large detector.