Study of the interactions of pions in the CALICE silicon-tungsten calorimeter prototype

TL;DR

This paper reports on testing a silicon-tungsten calorimeter prototype with pion beams, comparing experimental data with GEANT4 simulations to validate physical interaction models for future detector design.

Contribution

It provides experimental data on pion interactions in a silicon-tungsten calorimeter and evaluates the accuracy of GEANT4 models against these data.

Findings

Experimental pion interaction data collected in the 8-80 GeV range.

Comparison shows strengths and limitations of current GEANT4 models.

Results inform future calorimeter design and simulation accuracy.

Abstract

A prototype silicon-tungsten electromagnetic calorimeter for an ILC detector was tested in 2007 at the CERN SPS test beam. Data were collected with electron and hadron beams in the energy range 8 to 80 GeV. The analysis described here focuses on the interactions of pions in the calorimeter. One of the main objectives of the CALICE program is to validate the Monte Carlo tools available for the design of a full-sized detector. The interactions of pions in the Si-W calorimeter are therefore confronted with the predictions of various physical models implemented in the GEANT4 simulation framework.