Novel applications of PIN-photodiodes in relativistic heavy ion collisions

The new ultrarelativistic heavy ion collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, RHIC, has recently ended its commissioning run, and will begin colliding gold nuclei together at center of mass energies of up to 40 TeV. One of the key requirements for silicon drift detectors is that there can be no direct interaction between the detector and the beam. At the STAR experiment, PIN-photodiodes will be in place for the first year of beam running in order to detect beam loss before the silicon drift detector is put into place in 2000. The devices trigger on simultaneous interactions of an incoming particle with two PIN-diodes sandwiched together. In this paper we present methods in which to obtain results that are descriptive of the state of the beam, and show data for the latest commissioning run of beam circulation.