Large solid angle tracking of Monte Carlo events of heavy ion collisions in TPC magnetic spectrometers

The collision of 15 GeV/nucleon sulfur and carbon or oxygen ions with various fixed targets such as carbon, sulfur, and gold is to be observed in the MPS magnetic spectrometer with a time projection chamber (TPC) module. This TPC will be placed just downstream of the target and be able to track approximately 50% of all charged particles. The design and construction of the TPC is proceeding, and prototypes of the TPC readout system have been tested and production devices are to be delivered. A TPC track reconstruction program has been developed. Monte Carlo events have been generated and tracked. The track reconstruction program consists of three parts: a local pattern recognition which associates contiguous readouts on adjacent readout wires to form a single hit; a subroutine which positions the hits into slices in the vertical plane; and the track reconstruction section. (LEW