The Time Structure of Hadronic Showers in Calorimeters with Scintillator and with Gas Readout

The time structure of hadronic showers is characterized by a prompt component from relativistic particles and by late components predominantly connected to neutrons in the cascade. The sensitivity to this late component thus depends on the choice of the active medium for hadronic calorimeters. The time structure and the differences originating from different readout technologies in a calorimeter with tungsten absorbers are studied with two dedicated setups using scintillator tiles read out with SiPMs and glass RPCs. In both cases, a radial strip of 15 cells with a size of $3 \times 3$ cm$^2$ each is read out with fast digitizers with deep buffers, providing detailed information on the time structure of the recorded signals over a long sampling window. We will discuss the technical aspects of these systems, and present results on the time structure measurements, which demonstrate sizeable differences in the response of scintillator and gaseous detectors to the neutron components of the hadronic cascade.