A low-cost electrically pulsed shower detector

A sampling total absorption detector characterized by an extremely low cost and providing also identification of particle tracks has been developed. Preliminary results on the performance of a model with 14 radiation lengths, exposed to electrons of energies E up to 4 GeV, show that this instrument can measure the primary electron energy with an accuracy (r.m.s.) $\Delta E/E= \pm(12 $%) / $\sqrt E$ (E in GeV).