The Digital Hadron Calorimeter (DHCAL) is a large prototype of an imaging calorimeter using Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) as active media. The readout is segmented into 1times1 cm2 pads, each with a single bit resolution, hence the denomination of digital. The total channel count is close to 500,000. The DHCAL construction and assembly was completed in fall 2010, followed by a series of test beam campaigns in the FTBF test beam at Fermilab. In this paper we report on the analysis of events collected with the broadband muon beam. These events are utilized to geometrically align the layers horizontally and vertically, to establish the response as function of position on a single readout pad, and to measure the performance characteristics of the RPCs, i.e. the efficiency and average pad multiplicity. The latter were measured in both clean regions of the detector, i.e. away from structures such as the rims of the chambers, and as function of position on the entire vertical plane. In addition, the paper reviews the preliminary measurements of the noise rate in the detector.
Download