Hadron showers in a low-density fine-grained flash chamber calorimeter

Abstract

Hadronic showers at six incident particle energies from 33.8 to 415.4 GeV have been studied using the low-density fine-grained flash chamber calorimeter of the Lab C neutrino detector at Fermilab. Transverse distributions of unprecedented fine granularity have been obtained for a range of depths in the shower. Longitudinal energy distributions have been compared with those from iron-scintillator detectors. Some differences are observed which may be attributable to the different relative sensitivity of the two detector types to electromagnetic and hadronic shower components. Both longitudinal and transverse distributions have been parametrized. Fluctuations in energy deposition have been studied. The relative size of the fluctuations is largest near the starting vertex and in the tail of the shower, and falls slowly with increasing beam energy. Correlations between energy deposition in neighboring parts of the shower are observed, and anticorrelation is seen between energy deposition in the peak and in the tail of the shower. Containment lengths and widths have also been measured and parametrized.