The Digital Hadron Calorimeter: A New Concept and its First Results

The future electron-positron International Linear Collider (ILC) has a
broad physics program covering topics such as precision measurements of
the Higgs Boson and possible detection of Dark Matter or supersymmetric
particles. New detector concepts have to be developed to meet the very
stringent requirements. For optimised event reconstruction innovative
Particle Flow algorithms will have to be applied to all detector systems.
 
The international CALICE collaboration is developing highly granular
calorimeter detectors to that purpose, among them the high granularity
Digital Hadron Calorimeter (DHCAL) 1m³ prototype, based on the Resistive
Plate Chamber technology, as developed at the Argonne National Laboratory.
Its 460,800-channel read-out makes it the first digital imaging
calorimeter ever.

The DHCAL prototype was first tested at Fermilab and CERN with different
absorber materials, such as steel and tungsten. In November 2011, test
beam data was taken without the additional absorber structures. Data
collected with minimal absorber material provides unprecedented insight
into the inner structure of both electromagnetic and hadronic showers. The
data set is ideal for detailed comparisons with GEANT4-based simulations.
Results of the measurements and comparisons with simulations will be
presented.