Performance Evaluation of the Forward Calorimeter Prototype for ALICE

The Forward Calorimeter (FoCal) is a new detector as an upgrade project of the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The primary goal is to measure direct photon and neutral pion production at forward rapidity (3.2 < $\eta$ < 5.3). The proposed measurements will enable us to explore the initial state of high-energy heavy-ion collisions, where a new state of matter, the Color Glass Condensate, has been predicted. For this purpose, the FoCal aims to measure direct photons and neutral pions simultaneously in a wide momentum range at small x. The main component of FoCal is an electromagnetic calorimeter followed by a hadronic calorimeter. The former is designed as a sandwich of tungsten plates and silicon sensors with fine granularity. We have constructed a prototype of the FoCal and study the performance with electron and hadron beams at CERN PS and SPS in 2018. From the results, clear signals of minimum ionizing particles and of showering electrons are observed by the FoCal prototype. In this proceedings, we present the performance of the FoCal prototype and the future prospects for the detector construction.