We expect the discrimination power to be degraded if the pad detection efficiency is less than 100%. To simulate this we have incorporated in PISORP the means to randomly omit the storage of some fraction of the hits.
In Fig. 6 are shown curves analogous to those shown in Figs. 3-5 but with the detection efficiency of all pads set to 95%. Clearly the discrimination power is significantly degraded. Even at 8 GeV/c, which is the best case, if the bias is set to correctly identify 98% of the pions then 20% of the muons will be incorrectly identified. For case 1 shown in Fig. 3 which corresponds to the same pad layout but with 100% detection efficiency correct identification of 99% of both muons and pions is possible.
Figure 6: Discrimination efficiency for pad layout described in
the PHENIX CDR (Case 1 in Fig. 2) for detection efficiency
reduced to 95%.