Overview of the LHCb Calorimeter Detectors

The LHCb calorimeter system is composed of four subdetectors: an electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL) followed by a hadron calorimeter (HCAL). In addition the system includes in front of them the Scintillating Pad Detector (SPD) and Pre-Shower (PS). It is used to select transverse energy hadron, electron and photon candidates for the first trigger level and it provides the identification of electrons, photons and hadrons as well as the measurement of their energies and positions. The design and construction characteristics of the LHCb calorimeter will be recalled. Strategies for monitoring and calibration during data taking will be detailed in all aspects. Scintillating fibres, plastics and photomultipliers suffer from ageing due to radiation damage or high currents. Different methods which are used to calibrate the detectors and to recover the initial performances will be presented. The performances achieved will be illustrated in selected channels of interest for B physics.