Muon Identification with Muon Telescope Detector at the STAR Experiment

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the muon identification performance of the newly installed Muon Telescope Detector at STAR, demonstrating high efficiency and improved signal significance in proton-proton collisions at 500 GeV.

Contribution

It presents the first performance assessment of the MTD for muon identification in heavy ion collision experiments, using various methods including likelihood ratio.

Findings

Muon identification efficiency reaches ~90% for pT > 3 GeV/c

J/ψ signal significance improves by ~40% with advanced methods

Effective muon detection enhances heavy quarkonium studies

Abstract

Muon Telescope Detector (MTD) is a newly installed detector in the STAR experiment. It provides an excellent opportunity to study heavy quarkonium physics using the dimuon channel in heavy ion collisions. In this paper, we report the muon identification performance for the MTD using proton-proton collision at $\sqrt{s}$ = 500 GeV with various methods. The result using the Likelihood Ratio method shows that the muon identification efficiency can reach to $\sim$90% for muons with transverse momentum greater than 3 GeV/c and the significance of J/$\psi$ signal is improved by $\sim$40% compared to using the basic selection.