Description
The forward calorimeter (FoCal) of ALICE, planned to be operational for LHC Run 4, will cover pseudorapidity region 3.4 ≤ η ≤ 5.8 allowing to probe the unexplored region of Bjorken-x down to $10^{-5}$. The hadronic section of the FoCal (FoCal-H) will be based on scintillating fibers inserted in copper capillary tubes, with light read out by Silicon photomultipliers (SiPM). A “proof of concept” demonstration prototype was built and tested in the H6 beamline at the CERN SPS in the beginning of October, 2021, exposing it to an unseparated charged particle beam with energy in the interval 20 GeV – 80 GeV. The design of the prototype as well as the results of the energy reconstruction will be presented and the validation with a GEANT4-based simulation will be discussed.
