A time-of-flight system was constructed for the STAR Experiment for the direct identification of hadrons produced in 197Au+197Au collisions at RHIC. The system consists of two separate detector subsystems, one called the pVPD (the "start" detector) and the other called the TOFp tray (the "stop" detector). Each detector is based on conventional scintillator/phototube technology and includes custom high-performance front-end electronics and a common CAMAC-based digitization and read-out. The design of the system and its performance during the 2001 RHIC run will be described. The start resolution attained by the pVPD was 24 ps, implying a pVPD single-detector resolution of 58 ps. The total time resolution of the system averaged over all detector channels was 87 ps, allowing direct pi/K/p discrimination for momenta up to 1.8 GeV/c, and direct (pi+K)/p discrimination up to 3 GeV/c.

An introduction to the STAR detector and a brief overview of the physics goals of the experiment are presented.

We report on the development and test of a fast three-dimensional Track-Finder for the Level-1 trigger of the CMS endcap muon system. System tests included four types of custom circuit boards clocked at 40MHz, optical links, and a high-speed custom auxiliary backplane in a VME crate. The hardware results, calculated using field-programmable gate arrays, programmable logic devices, and memory lookup tables, agreed bit-for-bit with software simulations for both random patterns and realistic tracks.

Elliptic flow from nuclear collisions is a hadronic observable sensitive to the early stages of system evolution. We report first results on elliptic flow of charged particles at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=130 GeV using the STAR TPC at RHIC. The elliptic flow signal, v_2, averaged over transverse momentum, reaches values of about 6% for relatively peripheral collisions and decreases for the more central collisions. This can be interpreted as the observation of a higher degree of thermalization than at lower collision energies. Pseudorapidity and transverse momentum dependence of elliptic flow are also presented.

Elliptic flow from nuclear collisions is a hadronic observable sensitive to the early stages of system evolution. We report first results on elliptic flow of charged particles at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at square root(S)NN = 130 GeV using the STAR Time Projection Chamber at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The elliptic flow signal, v2, averaged over transverse momentum, reaches values of about 6% for relatively peripheral collisions and decreases for the more central collisions. This can be interpreted as the observation of a higher degree of thermalization than at lower collision energies. Pseudorapidity and transverse momentum dependence of elliptic flow are also presented.

An inexpensive and portable approach is presented to measure the time of occurrence of an experimental event as measured by a specific electronic clock. The clock resets in active synchronization with the experimental AC-power cycle. This allows an efficient and complete correction for correlated noise contributions to pulse area and time measurements of detector channels equipped with PhotoMultiplier Tubes. The electronic board that was developed will be described. The performance for the treatment of correlated noise in experimental data taken at the BNL-AGS facility, and analyses of spectral decompositions of this noise, will also be described.

The Muon System of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN consists of three detectors: Cathode Strip Chambers (CSC), Drift Tubes (DT) and Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC). The CSC front end electronics is located on chambers as well as in the 9U VME crates. The Trigger Motherboard (TMB) matches anode and cathode tags called Local Charged Tracks (LCT) and sends the two best combined LCTs from each chamber to the Muon Port Card (MPC). Each MPC collects data representing muon tags from up to nine TMB, which corresponds to one sector of CSC chambers.All TMB and MPC cards are located in 9U*400 mm VME crates mounted on the periphery of return yoke of the endcap muon system. Several TMB modules communicate with one MPC residing in the same crate over a custom peripheral backplane. The MPC selects data representing the three best muons and sends it over optical links to the Sector Receiver (SR) residing in the counting room 100 meters from the detector. The current electronics layout assumes 48 MPC modules residing in the 48 peripheral crates for both muon endcaps and 24 SR residing in the counting room. Each SR reformats the track segments into global coordinates suitable for the track-finding algorithms at the Sector Processor Board [1]. At the present design one SP board communicates with three SR over custom backplane.Due to high operating frequency 40.08MHz and the long distance from the detector to counting room an optical link is the only choice for data transmission. Our goal was to prototype a communication link between the MPC and SR using existing commercial components and evaluate possible options for the final link implementation.

The STAR Time Projection Chamber was successfully operated during the first RHIC run in 2000. Most of the STAR contributions reported in these proceedings are based on the analysis of data from the TPC. In this article, we show that the performance achieved by the TPC, in terms of track reconstruction, position resolution, and particle identification are well suited for measuring precise and reliable physics observables.