Limits to drift chamber performance at LHC luminosities

Muon spectrometers of the Large Hadron Collider experiments such as ATLAS and CMS have to operate at count rates up to 1 kHz/cm 2. The ATLAS muon spectrometer physics requires a momentum resolution of similar to 10% for muons with a transverse momentum of pr= 1 TeV/c. This translates into a spatial resolution of delta = 80 mum for a single-tube measurement and a systematic error to the space-time relationship due to changes of the environmental parameters of smaller than deltar(r.m.s)<70mum. We discuss measurements and simulations to demonstrate that even in this high-rate environment a spatial resolution of delta<80mum can be achieved. Space-charge effects and contributions due to signal processing which deteriorate the resolution at high rates have been identified. The impact of changes of the environmental parameters on the space-time relationship is investigated and ways to correct for systematic errors are introduced. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.