A new approach to software compensation for the CALICE AHCAL

A new software compensation algorithm is proposed for the fine granular CALICE hadronic calorimeter prototype. The goal of compensation procedure is to improve an energy resolution by taking into account a different response to electromagnetic and hadronic components of hadron-induced showers. The proposed compensation approach is based on the analysis of shower energy density distributions as the shape of these distributions was found to be correlated with calorimeter response to pions. A single correction factor is applied to correct the energy of each particular event. A weak energy dependence of the correction factor is taken into account by introducing a polynomial function which parameters are extracted from the fit to test beam results in the energy range from 10 to 80 GeV. The proposed approach helps to improve an energy resolution of the CALICE AHCAL by ∼10% in the analyzed energy range while keeping linearity within 2%. Simulation results using GEANT4 physics lists are in agreement with data below 30 GeV and predict larger improvement in resolution after applying the proposed compensation algorithm at higher energies.