ON THE TREATMENT OF ENERGY-LOSS IN TRACK FITTING

As the energy loss of electrons in matter is described by a strongly n on-Gaussian distribution, the Kalman filter is not necessarily the opt imal procedure for the fitting of electron tracks. We show that the mo mentum resolution can be improved by using nonlinear methods, such as the Gaussian-sum filter and the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. We repo rt results of a simple simulation experiment and comment on the respec tive merits of these methods. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.