Extensive particle identification with TPC and TOF at the STAR experiment

Particle identification (PID) capabilities are studied by using the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) and a Time-Of-Flight (TOF) detector together at STAR. The identification capability of charged hadrons is greatly extended compared with that achieved by TPC and TOF separately. Particle spectra from p + p , d + Au collisions at s NN = 200 GeV and Au + Au collisions at s NN = 62.4 GeV are used to develop the methods. The transverse momentum ( p T ) ranges of π , and p ( p ¯ ) identification are from ∼ 0.3 GeV / c to ∼ 10 GeV / c . The high p T reach is limited by statistics in current data sets. An important conceptual advance was developed to identify electrons by using a combination of d E / d x in TPC and velocity information from the TOF detectors, which is important for future low-mass dilepton program at STAR.