Energy and geometry dependence of calorimeter-based proton–pion discrimination

Characterize how the proton–pion discrimination power obtained from highly granular calorimeter measurements depends on the incident-particle energy and detector geometry, in order to assess the applicability of calorimeter-based particle identification and determine the granularity required to preserve the relevant shower information.

Background

The paper studies proton–pion identification using spatial, energetic, and temporal information from simulated highly granular calorimeter showers. Its results demonstrate substantial discrimination power, but the authors identify the dependence of that power on both incident energy and detector geometry as not yet adequately understood. Resolving this dependence is important for evaluating whether calorimeter-only particle identification can be useful across realistic energy ranges and for guiding detector-granularity choices.

The study addresses these dependencies through simulations at 10, 25, 50, and 100 GeV and through scans of transverse and longitudinal cell segmentation. However, the stated unresolved problem concerns the broader characterization of how energy and geometry control the recoverable particle-identification information.