ENHANCED SHOWER FORMATION IN ALIGNED THICK GERMANIUM-CRYSTALS AND DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHARGED HADRONS

The distribution of the energy released in a thin silicon detector pla ced on the downstream side of a thick germanium single crystal bombard ed with a 150 GeV electron or pion beam along directions close to the (110) axis or along random directions has been investigated. In view o f a possible application to very high energy gamma ray astronomy and p article physics, the intrinsic capability of such a device to reject, on the basis of energy discrimination, unwanted events due to charged hadrons together with the resulting loss of efficiency for the detecti on of showers initiated by high energy electrons, is determined as a f unction of the chosen energy threshold.