A Transition Radiation Detector for the BACCUS experiment

The balloon-borne BACCUS (Boron And Carbon Cosmic-rays in the Upper Stratosphere) experiment is designed to investigate the source, propagation and acceleration mechanism of high-energy cosmic-ray nuclei by directly measuring their energy and charge. Incorporating a Transition Radiation Detector (TRD) provides a model independent energy measurement, as well as good tracking capability. The TRD design provides a compact, robust, reliable, low density detector to measure the energy of incident 3 Z 26 nuclei in the 10 2 -10 5 Lorentz gamma factor range. The design, R&D, construction milestones, beam test results, and progress of the final TRD integration in the BACCUS instrument will be reported.