A Test Of Transition Radiation Detectors For A Colliding Beam Experiment

We have tested transition radiation detectors (TRDs) to separate electrons from pions in the momentum range between 2.0 GeV/ c and 7.5 GeV/ c . The radiator materials used in this experiment were polypropylene (CH 2 ) fibers and lithium (Li) foils. A Xe filled longitudinal drift chamber of 3 cm depth was used for detecting transition radiation photons. We compared the methods of truncated mean of the total charge measurements and of maximum likelihood as well as cluster counting methods. We obtained 2% electron/pion separation for the CH 2 fibers in the configuration of four modules with total length of 32 cm for a typical geometry of a collider experiment.