A modular straw drift tube tracking system for the Solenoidal Detector Collaboration experiment Part I. Design

We have developed the baseline design for a straw drift tube tracking system for the Solenoidal Detector Collaboration (SDC) detector. The system was designed to operate in the high-rate environment of a high luminosity hadron collider. We present an overview of the tracking system and the requirements it was expected to fulfill. We describe the construction and properties of the straw drift tubes. We discuss the design of the carbon-fiber foam-laminate shell, which supported the wire tension and held the straws in alignment. We also present descriptions of the designs of the front-end and digitization electronics as well as the electronics associated with the level 1 track trigger.