Behavior of TPCs in a high particle flux environment

TPCs (time projection chambers) used in E-810 at the AGS (alternating gradient synchrotron) were exposed to fluxes equivalent to more than 10/sup 7/ minimum ionizing particles per second to find if such high fluxes cause high changes or distortions of the electric field. Initial results of these and other tests are presented and the consequences for the RHIC (relativistic heavy ion collider) TPC-based experiments are discussed. Measurements of distortions due to ion loading in the E-810 TPCs have been measured to be small even at very high effective particle fluxes. This results supports the use of TPCs at RHIC, even at the highest planned luminosity. In addition, measurement of two-vertex resolution and reconstruction efficiency at high track density showed that a TPC is an excellent detector for the RHIC. >