Prototype results from a straw tracker with integrated transition radiation capability for the ATLAS experiment at the LHC

The role and the performance of an integrated straw tracker and transition radiation detector (TRT), as proposed for the ATLAS experiment at the future Large Hadron Collider (LHC), have been extensively studied by the RD6 collaboration, with Monte Carlo simulations and prototype detectors in a test beam. A 864 channel detector has been tested at the CERN SPS. The hadron and converted photon rejection have been measured and the results have been confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations.