Design and Test-Beam Results of the FoCal-H Demonstrator Prototype

TL;DR

This paper presents the design, construction, and beam-test results of a prototype for the forward hadronic calorimeter (FoCal-H) of ALICE, demonstrating its energy reconstruction capabilities and validating the design with simulations.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel prototype of the FoCal-H calorimeter and provides experimental validation of its performance through test-beam results.

Findings

Successful energy reconstruction in test-beam experiments

Validation of prototype performance with GEANT4 simulations

Feasibility of using copper capillary tubes and scintillating fibers in calorimetry

Abstract

The forward calorimeter (FoCal) of ALICE, planned to be operational for LHC Run 4, will cover the pseudorapidity range 3.4 $ \leq \eta \leq $ 5.8 allowing to probe the unexplored region of Bjorken-x down to $10^{-6}$. The hadronic section of the FoCal (FoCal-H) will be based on copper capillary tubes and scintillating fibers inside, with light read out by silicon photomultipliers (SiPM). A "proof of concept" demonstration prototype was built and tested in the H6 beamline at the CERN SPS in the beginning of October, 2021, exposing it to an unseparated charged particle beam with energy in the interval 20 GeV $-$ 80 GeV. The design of the prototype as well as the results of the energy reconstruction are presented and the validation with a GEANT4-based simulation is discussed.