Experimental HEP Seminar

Digital Hadron Calorimeter — future lepton collider

Lei Xia

Argonne National Laboratory

Particle Flow Algorithms (PFAs) have been applied to existing detectors to improve the measurement of hadronic jets in colliding beam experiments. For future experiments, such as a TeV lepton collider, detector concepts optimized for the application of PFAs are being developed. These concepts require so-called imaging calorimeters, with unprecedented granularity. I will briefly review the recent progress of such highly granular calorimeters, and report in detail about the development of a novel Digital Hadron Calorimeter (DHCAL) at Argonne National Laboratory, in collaboration with several other institutes, including McGill University.

I will report on the construction of a large scale prototype of the DHCAL, utilizing Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) with 1 x 1 cm² readout pads as the active medium. Construction of the prototype was completed in October 2010. Since then, the calorimeter has undergone extensive testing in the Fermilab test beam. I will also report preliminary results from the test beam data.