A silicon spectrometer for transition radiation detection for space applications

A novel design of a Transition Radiation Detector, based on Silicon Microstrip Detectors, is presented. Owing to the relatively high ionization energy release in semiconductor material (a few hundred keV), a magnetic field should be used to separate the radiating particle from TR X-ray photons. We have developed a full Monte-Carlo code to study in detail the performance of this detector such as bending power, strip pitch, charge sharing, and detection efficiency. We also present the results obtained with a small prototype exposed to an electron/pion beam at CERN PS. The particle identification capability allows the distinction of hadron from electrons up to 40 GeV/c and the spectrometer rigidity is almost 40 GV.