Hadronic energy resolution of a highly granular scintillator-steel hadron calorimeter using software compensation techniques

The energy resolution of a highly granular 1 m3 analogue scintillator-steel hadronic calorimeter is studied using chatged pions with energies 10-80 GeV at the CERN SPS. The energy resolution for single hadrons is determined to be appriximately 58%/√ E/GeV . This resolution is improved to 45%/√ E/GeV with software compensation techniques. The application of the compensation algorithms to GEANT4 simulations yield resolution improvements comparable to those observed for real data.