R&D results from the NOE scintillating fiber calorimeter

The development of the NOE calorimeter, based on scintillating fiber techno logy, has undergone four years of intense R&D activity. Measurements of lig ht attenuation and time resolution have been carried out on a variety of co mmercially available scintillating fibers. Both these parameters are import ant for the optimization of the design of the NOE calorimeter. Experimental results on the fiber attenuation length and light yield make us confident on the possibility to build a 8 x 8 m(2) cross-section calorimeter without noticeable loss of signal. The time resolution is resulted to be of the ord er of 1 ns, sufficient for up/down discrimination in the final calorimeter setup, by means of the time-of-flight method. Several tests performed to op timize the elementary cell of the calorimeter are also described. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.