Energy deposition and energy-deposition fluctuations in an ionization spectrometer and a total-absorption nuclear-cascade counter

Calculations have been carried out to determine the energy deposition and energy-deposition fluctuations produced by incident 28-GeV/c protons on an ionization spectrometer. In obtaining the pulse-height characteristics of the spectrometer, the nonlinearity of the light pulses is taken into account by the use of Birks' law and is shown to be of importance. A discussion of the experimental difficulties encountered in locating the position of the initial proton interaction within the spectrometer is also presented. Similar calculated results on the energy deposition and energy-deposition fluctuations are presented for 8-GeV/c negative pions incident on an NaI(Tl) total-absorption nuclearcascade (TANC) counter. Also included for 8-GeV/c incident negative pions is the laterally integrated energy deposition as a function of depth in a tin absorber. In general, the calculational approach used is shown to yield good agreement with the experimental data. (auth)