Studies for the electro-magnetic calorimeter {\em SplitCal} for the SHiP experiment at CERN with shower direction reconstruction capability

This paper describes the basic ideas and the first simulation results of a new electro-magnetic calorimeter concept, named {\it SplitCal}, aimed at optimising the measurement of photon direction in fixed-target experiment configuration, with high photon detection efficiency. This calorimeter was designed for the invariant mass reconstruction of axion-like particles decaying into two photons in the mass range 200~MeV to 1~GeV for the proposed proton beam dump experiment SHiP at CERN. Preliminary results indicate that angular resolutions better than obtained by past experiments can be achieved with this design. An implementation of this concept with real technologies is under study.