The transition radiation tracker (TRT) is one of three particle tracking detectors now under construction for the ATLAS experiment, whose goal is to exploit the highly exciting new physics potential at CERN's next accelerator, the so called Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The TRT consists of 370000 straw proportional tubes of 4 mm diameter with a 30 micron thick anode wire, which will be operated with a Xe/CO 2 /O 2 gas mixture at a high voltage of approximately 1.5 kV. While the construction of the TRT is now well under way, a number of interesting and challenging questions need to be solved with regard to wire aging phenomena, which are induced by pollution originating from very small amounts of silicon-based vacuum materials in some components of the gas system. Finally a guideline to avoid aging in wire chamber detectors in high luminosity experiments is given

The Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT) sits at the outermost part of the ATLAS Inner Detector, encasing the Pixel Detector and the Semi-Conductor Tracker (SCT). The TRT combines charged particle track reconstruction with electron identification capability. This is achieved by layers of xenon-filled straw tubes with periodic radiator foils or fibers providing TR photon emission. The design and choice of materials have been optimized to cope with the harsh operating conditions at the LHC, which are expected to lead to an accumulated radiation dose of 10 Mrad and a neutron fluence of up to 2middot10 14 n/cm 2 after ten years of operation. The TRT comprises a barrel containing 52 000 axial straws and two end-cap parts with 320 000 radial straws. The total of 420 000 electronic channels (two channels per barrel straw) allows continuous tracking with many projective measurements (more than 30 straw hits per track). The assembly of the barrel modules in the US has recently been completed, while the end-cap wheel construction in Russia has reached the 50% mark. After testing at the production sites and shipment to CERN, all modules and wheels undergo a series of quality and conformity measurements. These acceptance tests survey dimensions, wire tension, gas-tightness, high-voltage stability and gas-gain uniformity along each individual straw. This paper gives details on the acceptance criteria and measurement methods. An overview of the most important results obtained to-date is also given

The ATLAS Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT) performance depends critically on the choice of the active gas and on its properties. The most important operational aspects, which have led to the final choice of the active gas for the operation of the TRT at the LHC design luminosity, are presented. The TRT performance expected at these conditions is reviewed, including pile-up effects at high luminosity.

The ATLAS Inner Detector consists of three sub-systems, the Pixel Detector at the innermost radius, the Semi-Conductor Tracker at intermediate radii, and the Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT) at the outermost radius in front of the electromagnetic calorimeter. The TRT provides a combination of continuous tracking with many projective measurements based on individual drift-tubes (or straws) and of electron identification based on radiator fibres or foils interleaved between the straws themselves. This paper describes the current status of design and construction of the various components of the TRT: the assembly of the barrel modules has recently been completed, that of the end-cap wheels is well underway, and the on-detector front-end electronics is in production. The detector modules and front-end electronics boards will be integrated together over the next year, the barrel and end-cap TRT parts will be assembled and tested with their SCT counterparts during 2005 and installation and commissioning in the ATLAS pit will take place at the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006.

Several prototypes of the Transition Radiation Tracker for the ATLAS experiment at the LHC have been built and tested at the CERN SPS accelerator. Results from detailed studies of the straw-tube hit registration efficiency and drift-time measurements and of the pion and electron spectra without and with radiators are presented.

The techniques to measure the position of sense wires and field wires, the gas gain and the gas flow rate inside wire chambers using a collimated and filtered X-ray beam are reported. Specific examples are given using barrel modules of the Transition Radiation Tracker of the ATLAS experiment.

A prototype of the Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT) for the ATLAS experiment at the CERN LHC has been built and tested at the CERN SPS. Detailed studies of the drift-time measurements, alignment technique, hit registration efficiency, track and momentum accuracy were performed. A coordinate measurement accuracy of 150μm for a single TRT drift tube and momentum resolution of 0.8% for 20GeV pions in a 1.56T magnetic field were achieved. The results obtained are in agreement with the expected tracking performance of the ATLAS TRT.

Test-beam studies of the ATLAS Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT) straw tube performance in terms of electron–pion separation using a time-over-threshold method are described. The test-beam data are compared with Monte Carlo simulations of charged particles passing through the straw tubes of the TRT. For energies below 10GeV, the time-over-threshold method combined with the standard transition-radiation cluster-counting technique significantly improves the electron–pion separation in the TRT. The use of the time-over-threshold information also provides some kaon–pion separation, thereby significantly enhancing the B-physics capabilities of the ATLAS detector.

A prototype of the Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT) for the ATLAS detector at the LHC has been built and tested. The TRT is an array of straw tubes which integrate tracking and electron identi cation by transition radiation into one device. Results of experimental measurements and of comparisons with Monte Carlo simulations are presented for the electron identi cation performance as a function of various detector parameters. Under optimal operating conditions, a rejection against pions of a factor 100 was achieved with 90% electron e ciency. (Submitteed to Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics, section A) 1) Fysiska Institutionen, Lunds Universitet, Lund, Sweden 2) Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute, Moscow, Russia 3) Joint Institute of Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia 4) Rheinisch-Westfalische Technische Hochschule, Aachen, Germany 5) European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), Geneva, Switzerland 6) Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA 7) Max-Planck-Institut f ur Physik, M unchen, Germany 8) Physics Department, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA 9) P. N. Lebedev Institute of Physics, Moscow, Russia 10) Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA 11) Fachbereich Physik, Universitat Siegen, Siegen, Germany 12) Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Gatchina, St. Petersburg, Russia 13) Faculty of Physics and Nuclear Techniques of the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy, Cracow, Poland 14) Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, United Kingdom 15) Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics, Cracow, Poland 16) Moscow State University, Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow, Russia 17) now at Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, USA 18) Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

A prototype of the Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT) for the ATLAS detector at the LHC has been built and tested. The TRT is an array of straw tubes which integrate tracking and electron identification by transition radiation into one device. Results of experimental measurements and of comparisons with Monte-Carlo simulations are presented for the electron identification performance as a function of various detector parameters. Under optimal operating conditions, a rejection against pions of a factor 100 was achieved with 90% electron efficiency.