Monte Carlo simulations of the transition radiation detector of the AMS-02 experiment

The Transition Radiation Detector of the AMS-02 experiment on the International Space Station is used for the separation of cosmic-ray positrons and electrons from protons and anti-protons, and for the identification of nuclei up to carbon (Z <= 6). We present the Geant4 simulation that is used to describe the ionization and transition radiation processes and compare its results to flight data from AMS-02. After applying empirical corrections to the simulated data, the particle energy deposition and likelihood distributions in the TRD are described with high accuracy. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.