A high-granularity plastic scintillator tile hadronic calorimeter with APD readout for a linear collider detector

We report upon the performance of an analog hadron calorimeter prototype, where plastic scintillator tiles are read out with wavelength -shifting fibers coupled to avalanche photodiodes. This prototype configuration has been tested using a positron beam at DESY with energies between 1 and 6 GeV. We present different detector calibration methods, show measurements for noise, linearity, and energy resolution and discuss gain monitoring with an LED system. The results are in good agreement with our simulation studies and previous measurements using silicon photormiltiplier readout. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.