Resistive Plate Chambers for Imaging Calorimetry - the DHCAL

The DHCAL, the Digital Hadron Calorimeter, is a prototype calorimeter based on Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs). The design emphasizes the imaging capabilities of the detector in an effort to optimize the calorimeter for the application of Particle Flow Algorithms (PFAs) to the reconstruction of hadronic jet energies in a colliding beam environment. The readout of the chambers is segmented into 1 x 1 cm2 pads, each read out with a 1-bit (single threshold) resolution. The prototype with approximately 500,000 readout channels underwent extensive testing in both the Fermilab and CERN test beams. This talk presents preliminary findings from the analysis of data collected at the test beams.