Design, Construction and Testing of the Digital Hadron Calorimeter (DHCAL) Electronics

TL;DR

This paper details the design, construction, and testing of a highly segmented digital hadron calorimeter prototype using RPCs, focusing on its electronic readout system for future particle physics experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel digital hadron calorimeter with a finely segmented readout and describes the development and testing of its electronic system based on the DCAL chip.

Findings

Successful construction of a 500,000-channel prototype

Extensive testing at Fermilab and CERN test beams

Effective digital readout for hadron calorimetry

Abstract

A novel hadron calorimeter is being developed for future lepton colliding beam detectors. The calorimeter is optimized for the application of Particle Flow Algorithms (PFAs) to the measurement of hadronic jets and features a very finely segmented readout with 1 x 1 cm2 cells. The active media of the calorimeter are Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) with a digital, i.e. one-bit, readout. To first order the energy of incident particles in this calorimeter is reconstructed as being proportional to the number of pads with a signal over a given threshold. A large-scale prototype calorimeter with approximately 500,000 readout channels has been built and underwent extensive testing in the Fermilab and CERN test beams. This paper reports on the design, construction, and commissioning of the electronic readout system of this prototype calorimeter. The system is based on the DCAL front-end chip and a VME-based back-end.