A drift chamber combined with a GEM stage for particle-identification and tracking studies

Gaseous tracking detectors play a key role in existing and planned hadron and particle physics experiments. A universal tracking device has been set up for optimizing the performance of existing trackers (ANKE rate at COSY, WASA rate at COSY) and for developing new concepts (PANDA rate at FAIR). The setup consists of a drift gap followed by a GEM amplification stage and a stack of drift chambers. Additional scintillators above and below the setup give time reference signals for cosmics measurements. Data are read out with 160 MHz flash ADCs and with F1-TDCs. The setup is described. Results on tracking resolution, cluster formation along cosmics tracks, gas amplification for various mixtures are presented. The implication for particle identification based on the energy loss for e.g. straw detectors is discussed.