Energy-loss measurement with the ZEUS Central Tracking Detector

The measurement of the specific energy loss due to ionisation, dE/dx, in a drift chamber is a very important tool for particle identification in final states of reactions between high energetic particles. Such identification requires a well understood dE/dx measurement including a precise knowledge of its uncertainties. Exploiting for the first time the full set of ZEUS data from the HERA operation between 1996 and 2005 twelve detector-related influences affecting the dE/dx measurement of the ZEUS Central Tracking Detector have been identified, separately studied and parameterised. A sophisticated iterative procedure has been developed to correct for these twelve effects, which takes into account the correlations between them. A universal parameterisation of the detector-specific Bethe-Bloch curve valid for all particle species has been extracted. In addition, the various contributions to the measurement uncertainty have been disentangled and determined. This yields the best achievable prediction for the single-track dE/dx resolution. For both the analysis of the measured data and the simulation of detector performance, the detailed understanding of the measurement and resolution of dE/dx gained in this work provides a tool with optimum power for particle identification in a physics studies. (orig.)