Concept and status of the CALICE analog hadron calorimeter engineering prototype

A basic prototype for an analog hadron calorimeter for a future linear collider detector is currently being realized by the CALICE collaboration. The aim is to show the feasibility to build a realistic detector with fully integrated readout electronics. An important aspect of the design is the improvement of the jet energy resolution by measuring details of the shower development with a highly granular device and combining them with the information from the tracking detectors. Therefore, the signals are sampled by small scintillating tiles that are read out by silicon photomultipliers. The ASICs are integrated into the calorimeter layers and are developed for minimal power dissipation. An embedded LED system per channel is used for calibration. The prototype has been tested extensively and the concept as well as results from the DESY test setups are reported here.