A system test of various components of the Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR) detector, operating in concert, has recently come on-line. Communication between a major sub-detector, a sector of the Time Projection Chamber (TPC), and the trigger, data acquisition and slow controls systems has been established, enabling data from cosmic ray muons to be collected. First results from an analysis of the TPC data are presented. These include measurements of system noise, electronic parameters such as amplifier gains and pedestal values, and tracking resolution for cosmic ray muons and laser induced ionization tracks. A discussion on the experience gained in integrating the different components for the system test is also given.

The Slow Controls System for the Solenoidal Tracker At RHIC (STAR) is presented. The application of the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) to this system is discussed. A prototype Hardware Controls system incorporating the High-level Data Link Control (HDLC) protocol has been developed and tested. This Controls system is used to provide a number of on-chamber control functions as well as an alternative path for accessing digitized detector data. Results from the preliminary system tests are presented. I. The STAR Experiment The STAR detector is located on the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The STAR experiment will investigate collisions between gold ions accelerated to 100 GeV per nucleon, searching for evidence of the transition of nuclear matter to a quark-gluon plasma state (1). The use of a Time Projection Chamber (TPC) will enable the STAR experiment to track thousands of particles per event as well as examine and correlate individual particle properties and global event variables. The STAR experiment will be on-line in early 1999.