Drift chambers for slow particle indentification

A possibility of using a drift chamber for identification of slow particles with energies up to 10 MeV/nucleon has been studied. The mathematical modelling technique is used. The calculations are performed for an alpha-particle. It has been assumed that a particles moves in the direction perpendicular to the electric field lines of force in the drift gap. The unknown quantities are mass and particle charge. Argon is taken as a stopping medium. The suggested technique has been used for detecting ions of 4He, 24Mg, 56Fe. The calculated energy losses and errors are used as input data for a standard procedure of minimization which determines the values of charge, mass and energy of a particle at the inlet to the measuring channel. Calculated are the mass- and charge resolutions of the drift chamber as a function of the number and thickness of the measuring channels for the ions of 4He, 24Mg, 56Fe with energies up to 10 MeV/nucleon. The calculations have shown that the chamber may be used successfully in experiments requiring detecting and identification of the elements in the range z=1 to 30. The isotopic resolution, good for the ions of He and Mg, becomes considerably worse for Fe