Measurement of the contribution of neutrons to hadron calorimeter signals

The contributions of neutrons to hadronic signals from the DREAM calorimeter are measured by analyzing the time structure of these signals. The neutrons, which mainly originate from the evaporation stage of nuclear breakup in the hadronic shower development process, contribute through elastic scattering off protons in the plastic scintillating fibers which provide the dE=dx information in this calorimeter. This contribution is characterized by an exponential tail in the pulse shape, with a time constant of � 25 ns. The relative contribution of neutrons to the signals increases with the distance from the shower axis. As expected, the neutrons do not contribute to the DREAM Cherenkov signals. r 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 29.40.Ka; 29.40.Mc; 29.40.Vj