Skip to main content
eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

Energy flow in a hadronic cascade: Application to hadron calorimetry

Abstract

The hadronic cascade description developed in an earlier paper is extended to the response of an idealized fine-sampling hadron calorimeter. Calorimeter response is largely determined by the transfer of energy E_e from the hadronic to the electromagnetic sector via \pi0 production. Fluctuations in this quantity produce the "constant term" in hadron calorimeter resolution. The increase of its fractional mean, f_\rm em^0= \vevE_e/E, with increasing incident energy E causes the energy dependence of the \pi/e ratio in a noncompensating calorimeter. The mean hadronic energy fraction, f_h0 = 1-f_\rm em0, was shown to scalevery nearly as a power law in E: f_h0 = (E/E_0)m-1, where E_0\approx1~;GeV for pions, and m\approx0.83. It follows that \pi/e=1-(1-h/e)(E/E_0)m-1, where electromagnetic and hadronic energy deposits are detected with efficiencies e and h, respectively. Fluctuations in these quantities, along with sampling fluctuations, are in corporated to give an overall understanding of resolution, which is different from the usual treatments in interesting ways. The conceptual framework is also extended to the response to jets and the difference between pi and p response.

Main Content
For improved accessibility of PDF content, download the file to your device.
Current View